Reviews For Episode 1 Of Upanishad Ganga | Hindi TV Serial On DVD

Upanishad (or Upanishada) is definitely one of the greatest treasure of stories which spread knowledge, wisdom and gives glimpses of the mankind’s quest for knowledge, truth and understand the mystery of life and (possible) afterlife.

It starts with the precious words – हिरण्यमयेन पात्रेण सत्यस्यापिहितं मुखम्। तत्त्वं पुषन्नपावृणु सत्य धर्माय दृष्टये॥ Meaning: O Sun God, The Golden Vessel has concealed the Truth within, open it for me so I can explore it!

Episode #1 of the TV serial explores the generation gap and how the majority of youth look towards the ancient literature. People often refer – Sanskrut – as the language of the times when carts were the primary way of traveling; and hence there is nothing to explore in Sanskrut literature. We, by ignoring Sanskrut as a language keeps ourselves banned from exploring the fantastic stuff it offers.

There are some Sanskrut scholars and devotees who does all he can to keep the language alive and spread its knowledge. Their aim is to keep the quality literature available and explored by the mankind (current and future generations). Apart from the ideological differences about Sanskrut and modern way of living between a father and son, the episode try showing the possible effective way to keep the knowledge of Upanishad alive.

If to talk about acting Vishwa Badola excels. He reminds us of veteran actor Bharat Bhushan. He is a perfect match for the persona required by the character he is playing, a calm, wise, mature, well-cultured, no-nonsense, ethical fellow who believe in morals. Abhimanyu Singh plays his son, who have different ideas than his father. Though, grown up in an well-cultured environment, despite of his fury about the old language (Sankrut) and its uselessness in being source of livelihood these days, he respects his father and his ideology. The other person catches attention in this episode is the man who brings the foreign student to Shastriji. He represents a typical fellow who does big talks and link-up people and gets benefit from both the sides, a kind of broker or service provider. The actor playing foreign student is okay for his role. None of the other cast members catch attention based on their work!

The city of Banaras (aka Varanasi) is portrayed really well on the screen. The house cum gurukul is also a perfect representation. A well made research is reflected in all these stuff. Even the wardrobe is prepared smartly. A nice and authentic representation of the stuff. The director does his job well.

If we look at the content of the episode, it can be summarized as below:
A young fellow from foreign country came to Banaras in order to learn Sanskrut. It is worth to note the word – DevVani – used for Sankrut, it literally can be translated as the language of Gods. He heard about a Sanskrut scholar and was finding him. During his search he met Mr. RatiShankar who is like a commission agent. Popularly known as Panditji, the aged Sanskrut scholar is very straight forward and genuine person. He have the ability to know a person’s inner character from his behavior. He ask the foreign youth to meet him next day, alone.

Panditji aka Guruji then ask the reasons for the interest of the youth to learn Sanskrut. After he found that the fellow is genuinely interested in learning Sanskrut he permit him to join his group of students. Panditji’s son – Narendra – who himself is a Sanskrut scholar, is a theater artist. He struggle for earning handsome amount of money. As, the knowledge of Sankrut doesn’t make him eligible for traditional job or business or any contemporary stuff. He sometimes thought that if he was educated in different way, he could have had a better career! He is not very wrong, if you think from his point of view.

The dispute of thoughts and way of thinking between the father and the son doesn’t affect the tradition to respect the elders in Indian culture, though. But, there came a small line of dispute between both them.

However during one rehearsal, Narendra got a different kind of idea. An idea to create a fusion in his next play. He wanted to put the dialogs from ancient characters found in Sanskrut literature, in the mouth of his artists, who are playing a drama written by Shakespeare!!!

How his idea progress is better to watch on the screen.

We must say that the episode is definitely worth watching as a lot of stuff is taken from the real life authentically. The characters are well written and the dialogs are simple yet powerful. A well researched stuff, which gives you a promising look to about the forthcoming episodes. The DVD quality is superb. Our personal verdict is, not to miss it.

It is worth to note that the episode is available to watch for free on YouTube: