''Surabhi'' ("Fragrance") was an Indian cultural magazine show hosted by

Renuka Shahane Renuka Shahane (born 7 October 1966) is an Indian actress who is widely known for her work in the Hindi and Marathi films and several television productions. She is best known as the co-presenter of the Doordarshan TV show '' Surabhi'' (1993 ...

and

Siddharth Kak Siddharth Kak is an Indian documentary maker, television producer, and presenter, best known as the producer and presenter of '' Surabhi'' (1990–2001). Subsequently, Kak established the 'Surabhi Foundation' with the assistance of Ford Foundat ...

, which ran from 1990 to 2001 with a year's break in 1991. It was initially telecast on the state-run television channel

Doordarshan Doordarshan (), abbreviated as DD, is India's State-owned enterprise, state-owned public broadcasting, public television broadcaster. Established by the Government of India on 15 September 1959, it is owned by the Ministry of Information and B ...

, and later moved to

Star Plus StarPlus is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel owned by JioStar, a joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India. Its programming consists of family dramas, romantic comedies, youth-oriented reali ...

in the Sunday morning slot. Surabhi was produced by Kak's

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

-based production house Cinema Vision India. Its theme was Indian culture. The show is India's longest-running cultural series and features in the

Limca Book of Records The ''Limca Book of Records'' is an annual reference book published in India documenting world records held by Indians. The records are further categorised into education, literature, agriculture, medical science, business, sports, nature, adve ...

for receiving the largest measured audience response ever in the history of Indian television.

History

The title music of ''Surabhi'' was composed by Indian composer and classical violinist L. Subramaniam. Indian cooperative dairy giant

Amul The Anand Milk Union Limited commonly known as Amul is an Indian dairy brand owned by the cooperative society, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), based in Anand, Gujarat. GCMMF is controlled by 3.6 million milk producers. ...

sponsored it for a long time, and the show was titled ''Amul Surabhi''. One of the reasons of its popularity was the weekly quiz open for viewer participation. Being the early 90s, mobile phones and the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

did not exist in India; so viewers were asked to post their responses using the 15 paise

postcard A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. In some places, one can send a postcard f ...

India post The Department of Posts, d/b/a India Post, is an Indian Public Sector Undertakings in India, public sector postal system statutory body headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is an organisation under the Ministry of Communications (India), Minist ...

. According to the ''

'', 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

Rupee Rupee (, ) is the common name for the currency, currencies of Indian rupee, India, Mauritian rupee, Mauritius, Nepalese rupee, Nepal, Pakistani rupee, Pakistan, Seychellois rupee, Seychelles, and Sri Lankan rupee, Sri Lanka, and of former cu ...

s each for participating in such contests."The fragrance of Surabhi"
/ref> 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 breadth of the

Indian culture Indian culture is the heritage of social norms and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse nation of India, pertaining to the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and the Republic of India post-1947. ...

". Subsequently, Kak established the Surabhi Foundation with the assistance of

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

and started a project on preserving cultural artifacts.

References

External links

*
The title music of Surabhi on YouTube

History

References

Further reading

External links

See also