That was not an era of the Internet, even mobile phones were high-tech machines that time. Doordarshan channel and the classic Antenna were the main entertainment in India. I am talking about the 90’s.
One show in particular invaded the hearts of millions that time. Do you remember the TV show “Amul Surabhi”? People who used to watch Doordarshan in the 90’s must recollect the vivid memories of this wonderful programme.
I was a school kid that time look eagerly for the Tamil version of the show, I think Wednesday night 10pm guess I am not wrong. There were no discovery channel or travel & living channel to take us places. This show was like an explorer for many kids and elders that time. Sometimes we curse DD if they miss out the dubbed version and telecast the Hindi one. Sad that time I am not familiar with ABCs of Hindi 🙂 I have vivid memoir of those days. Wanted to know is there anyone who still remembers this wonderful Surabhi? Please comment with your experience.
Surabhi (English: Fragrance) was a popular Indian cultural magazine show hosted by Renuka Shahane and Siddharth Kak, which ran from 1993 to 2001. It was telecast on Doordarshan, the Indian state-run television channel, and later moved to Star Plus on Sunday mornings. Surabhi was produced by Kak’s Mumbai based production house Cinema Vision India and had Indian culture as its central theme. The show holds the distinction of being India’s longest-running cultural series and features in the Limca Book of Records for receiving the largest measured audience response ever in the history of Indian television.
The title music of Surabhi was composed by acclaimed Indian composer and classical violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam. Indian cooperative dairy giant Amul sponsored it for a long time, and the show was titled Amul Surabhi. The show had a rating of 51 percent in its initial run in 1993.
One of the reasons of its popularity was the weekly quiz open for viewer participation. At that time mobile phones and Internet were not prevalent in India and viewers would post their responses using the 15 paise postcard of India post. According to the Limca Book of Records the show once received the highest ever documented response in the history of Indian television – over 1.4 million letters in a single week. The Indian postal department was forced to issue a different category of postcards called “Competition Postcards” priced at 2 Rupees each for participating in such contests. Surabhi was dubbed in Indian regional languages like Tamil and got a great response from Indian states where Hindi is not an official language.
During the 1990s, Surabhi had become a benchmark show and is known as “one of the best television shows ever made that reflected the length and breath of the Indian culture“. Subsequently, Kak established the Surabhi Foundation with the assistance of Ford Foundation and started a project on preserving cultural artifacts.
AR Rahman’s rare interview on Surabhi
View more episodes here on Amul TV
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Courtesy : Wikipedia, Amul.TV, Episode Details
PROPEL STEPS 
i just cry..cry,cry…my golden days of life..on those days i and my late grand mother together watching suravhi,,though she was bengali ,still enjoy the program..she is no more,,,suravhi reminds my bonding with my dadi..can any one bring a TIME MACHINE..plssss,,i want to go back 25 yrs ago..
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She is still and always in your memories. That’s how life works. Just close your eyes she will be with you. Our beloved ones are always just at the distance of our eyelids.
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That brings back the memories of the postcard days..I remember sending a lot of them..and getting disappointed every time for which I never won 😦
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May be because of the letters on huge volume, what they too can do those days without technology. Forgive them 🙂 Thank you for sharing your memories here.
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This show was so good.
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Hmmm.. Yes 🙂 Thanks for sharing your comment
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Yes ….after reading this post , went back in the past…in golden school days… loved watching. Thanks for reminding & sharing this post 🙂
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🙂 Thank you. Glad about the good remembrances you got, Please go through the blog there are plenty of posts, On Indiblogger, I share only those what I write. Now only started sharing other posts too. Anyways thanks for the comment
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Yesss..always looked forward to see this..loved watching it with the entire family. Renuka Shahane had become everybody’s darling with her ‘Binaca’ Smile. Those were sweet 90s 🙂
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True, that was a real family show, with excitement filled eyes and having food together. No fighting over the remote control (there was none in fact 🙂 ) Thanks for sharing your memories and we are glad too.
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Yes of course I used to love this show! I was in school n looked fwd to it! I rem how once a postcard had reached dem where word surabhi in smallest possible yet legible handwriting ws written some thousands of times!
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I really never expected so many responses. Just a simple TV show has so much of place in people’s heart 🙂 I am amazed. I don’t know there are shows today, but the programs like this always reminds in mind. Another short film called “Rino” too was a childhood favorite. Thanks for sharing your memories here.
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oh! yes … loads of memories actually… loved it…
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Happy to give you some smile because of this post. Remember some good old days 🙂 thank you
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Yess… I remember.. was a kid though.. but I loved the show..
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🙂 Even I was in my single digit age. Just I will go back to those times if I get a chance in time machine will not come back here 😛 Thanks for the comment.
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You just brought back loads of memories 🙂
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🙂 Glad that you have revisited your good old days’ memories because of this post. Thank you for the comment
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I loved it !! Thanks for reminding 🙂 It was an eagerly awaited show and was the discovery+Fox Traveller+Food Food+History Channel of our childhood 😀 Thanks again for sharing .
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🙂 Thanks for sharing your memories. As you said, it was like reading a travel, food, history and culture magazines in one hour.
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