This origin story goes on for an excruciating 20 odd 20 minute episodes, all of which open with a 3 minute opening title/song sequence followed by the same 3 minute voice over introduction to the universe accompanied by bad 3D animation of every place and organization you are likely to encounter through the entire duration of the series, even if a lot of it is not going to feature in the episode you’re currently watching. Played by Kiran Kumar who is only 11 years older than Mukesh Khanna. You see after the grand success of Shaktimaan, a 40-plus Mukesh Khanna thought that he was the reason for Shaktimaan’s popularity among kids (when in fact it was completely the other way round…anybody from the cast of Mahabharat could have played Shaktimaan successfully, including Gajendra Chauhan…ok maybe not him, or that Vidur guy). It ran for only 90 episodes (Wikipedia says 52 but YouTube has 91, including one special preview episode) which seems like a big deal until you take into account that Shaktimaan began 5 years before it and ended about 2 years after it (about 500 episodes or close to 10 years).īut why are we talking about Shaktimaan? What about that failure of a show that I just called a gem? I’ll get to that presently, o rhetorical device. Also, the show was a huge failure so there was hardly anyone talking about it (then or now). Therefore, I didn’t even have second hand knowledge of an amazing gem that aired on DD starting in 2002.
#Shaktimaan episode 500 tv
Over the course of the 90s, more and more people around me started getting cable but as I went off to college at the turn of this century (just because I hate the word noughties) I mostly forgot all about TV (with all the free internet access who needed TV?). In short, I knew Tara better than I knew Shanti. He went on to directing films as well and his filmography as director includes such gems as Hawas, Girlfriend, Souten – The Other Woman and Eight-Shani.] He also wrote and directed the show Rajani and was married to its star Priya Tendulkar for some time. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, here’s a visual… But what you probably haven’t given any thought to, is the fact that Tehkikaat was actually written and directed by Karan Razdan.
As you all know, this 13 episode whodunit starred the director of Guide, Teesri Manzil and Jewel Thief alongside the future director of Mudda – The Issue, Pappu Can’t Dance Saala and I M 24. [Totally Irrelevant Aside – While we are talking of DD shows that I only have second hand knowledge of, let us veer for a moment towards Tahkikaat.
But I had only second hand knowledge of stuff like Shaktimaan (all you need to know – Tamraj Kilvish, “Andhera Kayam Rahe” and “Sorry Shaktimaan!”), Raja Aur Rancho (all you need to know – Rancho is a monkey…or was it Raja?) and all the rest of DD Metro (all you need to know – Super Hit Muqabla).
And I did watch Chandrakanta, Alif Laila, Jungle Book and all the other Hindi dubbed anime (yes they were all Japanese) with title tracks by Gulzar and Vishal Bhardwaj (credited only as Vishal). We still watched Chitrahaar for some time, before Philips Top 10 happened. I pretty much missed out on a lot of the 90s Doordarshan experience. I went into all of this to make one short point. The reason was that my father was an early adopter of technology…I had a computer at home when ‘Computers’ wasn’t even a subject at school (I’m talking about the BW era…Before Windows, not Black and White – the display was neon green like the Matrix) and we got cable TV in 1992 (when it had around 5 channels, I don’t really remember very clearly). As a double-digit kid (just because I hate the word tween) in the early 90s, my pop culture started diverging from most of my peers.