There’s a great deal of debate about whether the story of Ramayana is accurate or not. While some of us grew up watching it, a few of us refused to believe that animals could talk, diving birds could save lives or an Asian bear could plan a whole strategy on how lord Ram can save Sita. I can go on about more such mythological things that were shown in Ramayana, but let’s leave that for another day.
Ramayana by Ramanan Sagar was re-aired on Doordarshan on March 28 in order to beat the lockdown blues. And no one could have imagined that the TV show would make a new record. Ramayana became the world’s most-watched show on April 16 with 77 million viewers, DD India posted on its official Twitter handle a few days ago. My mom tells me that the show used to be the reason for empty roads. Well, now I know why. Now, this most-watched show of all time along with another mythological show, Mahabharat, has had some negative influence on kids in Hyderabad. The reason? Reportedly, such is the popularity of the shows that children are trying to imitate scenes.
According to media reports, children have started playing with bows and arrows made at home in an effort to recreate scenes from the shows. It has been reported that in the last 40 days, at least 12 children have lost their eyesight owing to bow and arrow games. And several other kids in surrounding areas have reported pierced eye injuries.
“When Ramayana was telecast about two decades back, we saw many bow-and-arrow injuries,” said Dr Subhadra Jalali, director of Retina Institute at LVPEI, Hyderabad, in a media report.
“For about 15 years we did not see these injuries, but the numbers are starting to rise again. In an attempt to copy the central characters (from TV shows), kids make their own bow-and-arrow games,” he added.
The first such case was reported from Ranchi, where a 10-year-old hurt his cornea and retina while playing with bow and arrow. A flying broomstick pierced one of his eyes and even after the surgery, doctors couldn’t save his vision.
Well, screen time for kids sure has increased. But, we can’t blame them. While parents can’t keep them away from the TV, all they can do is stay alert.
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