The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Return of ‘Ram’: No better time to be Arun Govil than now
SINCE HE played the lead role in the television series Ramayan nearly four decades ago, Arun Govil, 72, has been the face of Lord Ram.
However, what is perhaps lesser known among fans who would light incense during Ramanand Sagar’s widely popular tele-serial in the late 1980s is that Govil was initially rejected for the role of the epic hero. Or that the actor’s family members and friends had dissuaded him from acting in a religious show as it would hurt his prospects in commercial cinema. Or that Govil realised the role of Lord Ram as his true calling before approaching Sagar.
“After I was rejected, Ramanand ji’s sons urged me to play Bharat or Lakshman .
“But my deep desire was to play the role of Lord Ram,” Govil told The Indian Express in 2019. On Sunday, the ruling BJP named Govil as its candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Meerut, the actor’s birthplace, in the electorally-crucial western Uttar Pradesh region, which accounts for about 19 seats out of the state’s 80. This will be his electoral debut.
The BJP picked Govil over sitting MP Rajendra Agrawal, who won from the Meerut seat three consecutive terms since 2009.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls,
Agrawal beat the BSP’S Haji Yaqoob Qureshi with a narrow margin of 4,729 votes. His winning margin was, however, over 2.32 lakh votes in the 2014 polls when he defeated the BSP’S Mohammad Shahid Akhlak.
Despite being enshrined in the public imagination as ram, the actorhas played many other roles in theatre and Bollywood. He started off with school theatre and was a part of the amateur dramatics circuit at the Government Inter College, me e rut. in mumbai in the mid-1970s, he was noticed by Rajshri Productions that cast him as a supporting character in the film Paheli (1977).
“Everything that happens has a good and a bad side. On the one hand, I became known as the actor who played Lord Ram on TV. On the other hand, I started wondering, ‘Why am I known only for this role and not the others?’ I started getting the same type of roles. Then again, I stopped smoking because if people were coming and touching my feet, they wouldn’t want to see me with a cigarette. Faith and religion are very strong in our country and we have to respect that,” said Govil, who recently acted in films such as Article 370 (where he played the Prime Minster, clearly modelled after
Narendra Modi), and OMG2.
Thirty years after the TV series, Govil returned to play Lord Ram on stage in Atul Satya Koushik’s Broadway-style production, The Legend of Ram: Ek Shabd, Ek Baan, Ek Naari.the Ram Temple was consecrated on January 22 this year by PM Modi, with the issue being used by the BJP as a key part of its plank in the Lok Sabha polls. It is in this context that Govil’s selection by the BJP among its UP candidates assumes significance.
In the coming week, Modi will be at Meerut in his first public rally in Uttar Pradesh after the notification of polls dates.