Rakesh Chowdhary's comedy series on DD-1 completes one year run

Mumbai, Oct 8 (UNI) Rakesh Chowdhary, producer and creative director of 'Samvaad Video' is celebrating the first anniversary of his comedy serial 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' on Doordarshan's National Network.

Rakesh says the records his serial has set in its first year itself has stunned television programmers. 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi', which is being telecast at 2100 hrs every Thursday on DD-1 has faired very successfully, at a point when all other comedy serials are faring badly even in the same channel.

With its success 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' has started a new wave of comedies on Doordarshan itself, Rakesh said. He said in the telecast of its very fifth episode, the serial reached the top number-one slot based on its TRP's.

''Since then the serial has for an entire year maintained itself on the number-one or number-two slot (based on the viewership ratings and the TRP's). Besides this if we are to look at the TRP's then 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' has been continuously adjudged the most popular and most watched serial across all the channels over the past five to six months,'' he said.

With the success of the serial many comedy-based serials were launched on Doordarshan's national network. The serial 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' has primarily three characters at its centre and these are Rohan (Tushar Dalvi), Rohan's first wife Ritu (Shalini Kapur), and his second wife Rinku (Neeru Bajwa). The serial shows Rohan who is forever trapped between his two wives and the situations that he has to face in order to protect both his wives. Using this as the crux the serial comes up with a new situation and sequence of events in each episode, and each situation is designed to generate humour.

As against the current image of programmes on Doordarshan the serial 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' was shot on a lavish scale, the scale of lavishness is absolutely unmatched by any of the competing programms even on any other satellite channels. 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' is receiving an incredible amount of success, Rakesh said.

''We have always believed in doing work which is unique and quality oriented. The serial combines human emotions and feelings with strong dramatic content and such unique moment when the viewers are unable to stop themselves from rolling with laughter. We have tried to ensure that after seeing 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' the viewers feel that the glorious days of Doordarshan are once again upon us,'' he added.

He said in the last one year, his serial had to face lot of problems and situations. Sometimes the entire nation was in a grip of cricket fever, then there were moments of political turmoil, and then there were other things as well. ''During such moments the TRP's of each serial on every channel suffered drastically. Even in such times 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' did not face any substantial reduction in it's TRP's. It might not be too much to claim that every episode of 'Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi' has been always on the number one slot,'' he added.

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