The most expensive Indian TV show ever cost Rs 650 crore, much more than any Indian film ever made, including Kalki 2898 AD
Television shows in India started at the smallest scale possible. Krishi Darshan, the first proper TV show from India, was more informational and had a shoe string budget. But Indian TV has come a long way since then. While most reality shows’ budgets are skewed due to the hosts’ high salaries, fiction shows are a different ball game. Historical TV shows have taken the lead in terms of scale in Hindi entertainment and the biggest of them all dwarfs even films when it comes to budget.
The most expensive Indian TV show
In 2019, Siddharth Kumar Tewary conceptualised a mythological show based on Ramayana titled Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush. The show was mounted on a massive scale, with reports claiming that each episode had a budge of Rs 4 crore when it went on the floors. Mid-Day reported that the total production cost of the show was a whopping Rs 650 crore, higher than any Indian show or film before or since.
How Ram Siya Ke Lav Kush beat RRR and Adipurush’s budgets
At the time of the show’s release, the most expensive Indian film was Saaho, with a reported budget of Rs 350 crore. Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush almost doubled that. In 2023, a film that was also based on Ramayana – Adipurush – became the most expensive Indian film with a reported budget of Rs 550 crore. It was still less than the total cost of Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush. Several other big films – RRR (Rs 500 crore), Brahmastra (Rs 400 crore), and Jawan (Rs 300 crore) had budgets way less than this TV series. The upcoming pan-India film Kalki 2898 AD is set to take the mantle from Adipurush with a budget of Rs 600 crore but Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush’s mark will remain untouched.
All about Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush
Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush was based on Uttar Ramayana, the episode involving Lord Rama and Sita’s sons Luv and Kush. The show starred Himanshu Soni as Lord Rama and Shivya Pathania as Sita, along with Krish Chauhan and Harshit Kabra as Luv and Kush respectively. The show aired for 141 episodes from August 2019 to its conclusion in February 2020. The show saw controversy during its initial airing when the Valmiki community in Punjab sought a ban on it or representing a disfigured fact on the Sage Valmiki. The protests grew violent and a man was shot dead in September 2019. Following this, Punjab CM banned the show in the state. After the makers went to court and offered to delete the offensive sections, the Punjab and Haryana High Court set aside the ban in October.
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 "Shalin Bhanot in Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush")
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