Dipika Was Unhappy That Only Her Beauty was Noticed in ‘Ramayana’

In conversation with actors from Ramanand Sagar’s ‘Ramayana’ Dipika Chikhlia and Sunil Lahri.

A scene from Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Ramanand Sagar’s popular TV serial Ramayan is being telecast again since 28 March on public demand. Ramanand Sagar had made a total of 78 episodes of this serial based on Valmiki's Ramayana and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas. For the first time in the country, the serial was originally broadcast from 25 January 1987 to 31 July 31 on every Sunday at 9.30 am.

The show was so famous that till today people worship the actors who played Ram, Sita and Lakshman. In a Zoom chat, we got to interact with Dipika Chikhlia who played Sita and Sunil Lahri who played Lakshman. Dipika spoke about being stereotyped post-playing Sita but she says that never bothered her but what bothered her was, that people only talked about how pretty she looked in the show but never spoke about her performance. But now in 2020, that has changed and she is happy that the re-run of the show has made people take notice of her acting skills as well.

Did you know that Sunil Lahri who played Lakshan in Ramayana was not the first choice for the character? He was offered to play Shatrughan’s character. They even started shooting but he tells us the story behind what happened and how he bagged the role of Lakshman.