Doordarshan Nostalgia: Surabhi

This is more like nostalgia for people of my generation, given that a number of today’s youngsters would not remember this excellent cultural program called Surabhi; but it was more than just a simple cultural program. The serial attempted to show us the diversity across the length and breadth of this country; it is almost a guarantee that in each episode we would discover something new.
The serial ran for a very long time and had a total of approx 415 episodes making this a very long-running serial indeed. Imagine learning about the martial art of Kerala called ‘KALARIPAYATTU’, or learning about the art and culture of a city in Tamil Nadu or Rajasthan. The serial was hosted by the popular duo of Siddharth Kak and Renuka Shahne. It was a popular combination, with the slightly more serious Kak and the ever-smiling Renuka. One of the hottest point about the serial was the involvement of the audience, with audiences being asked a question at the end of an episode, and the involvement grew and grew till they had to handle a huge number of postcards (I believe that they had a record of 10 lakh postcards for one episode).

If you want to know more about the contents of each episode of the serial, there is a whole list available at this link. In addition, you can download clips of videos at the Rajshri Site (after some ads), or purchase the entire episode at this link.