Indian TV Serial Tamas Finally Available Online

Thanks to the indefatigable AG, the TV serial Tamas broadcast by Doordarshan in the late 1980s is now available online. Based on a novel by Bhisham Sahni on the partition of India, it hit the TV screens in the backdrop of Babri Masjid- Ramjanmabhoomi imbroglio and brings back memories of some very fine TV serials made at time- Shyam Benegal’s The Discovery of India, Gulzar’s Mirza Ghalib and Arvind N Das’s documentary India Invented based on DD Kosambi’s works. Happily all these are now available at youtube and/or google videos.

Even twenty years after it was broadcast, Tamas still touches a raw nerve and, sad to say, retains the relevance of its core message- the human cost of violence in general and of sectarian violence in particular. The last two decades seem to have been a re- enactment of the partition, this time in slow motion.

View part 1 of 5 of the serial at google videos (or click on the image above)

Link to part 2
Link to Part 3
Link to part 4
Link to part 5

[Thanks Bhupinder]