Dara Singh used to take four hours to become 'Hanuman': He used to wake up at 3 in the night, could not eat anything after make-up.

Many serials have been made on 'Ramayana' till now. However, Ramanand Sagar's 'Ramayana' created such a history that people would hardly be able to forget. Let us tell you, the shooting of this show was done in Umargaon located on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border, 150 kilometers away from Mumbai. According to Ramanand Sagar's son Prem Sagar, if he had not gone to Umargaon, the show would hardly have been made. During a conversation with Dainik Bhaskar, Prem Sagar shared some interesting things related to the shooting of the show.

He said, 'If we had not gone to Umargaon, Ramayana might not have been made. The best thing was that the place was cut-off from the whole world. The nature there brought this serial and its characters to life. There were all kinds of locations around the set. Art director Hirabai Patel was a very talented person. He had done all the films of Wadia Brothers. He offered us Vrindavan Studio in Umargaon. That place was no less than a ruin.

When we opened the door of that studio, there were many webs, spiders etc. But the property there (walls, chariots etc.) was very grand. We worked day and night to build the entire studio. After that Umargaon became a world destination. BBC channel came there. Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia stayed there. No one ever recognized Umargaon, but after 'Ramayana' this city got a different identity.

During our conversation, Prem Sagar told that the actors liked to live in Umargaon only. He said, 'Dara Singh took about 4 hours to do the makeup of Hanuman's character. He would wake up at 3 in the night for the 7 in the morning shift. He could not eat anything after makeup. There was no prosthetic makeup at that time. We used vulcanized rubber. Would put makeup on that rubber. We were able to do this because we had actors and makeup teams available 24 hours a day. We worked day and night.

Once the actors reach the set, they are not able to get out of there. Actors used to come in their own cars. Since the roads were not good, he preferred to stay on the actor's set. For almost two years, all the actors were based in Umargaon.

Prem Sagar further says, 'At that time there were not even associations. No one tells us that we have to shoot only for 8 hours. If we had given minimum salary to any junior artist, he would have happily agreed to play drums for us. Everyone worked happily there. Ramayana could be made because there was no association. If there were associations like today, it would have been difficult to make Ramayana.

'Ramayana' was first telecast on Doordarshan in 1987. In the show, Arun Govil played the role of Ram, Deepika Chikhalia played the role of Sita and Arvind Trivedi played the role of Ravana.