Avid followers of mega-serial Nadhaswaram on Sun TV may still be in withdrawal mode after the 1,350-odd-episode-long family drama came to a close this week. Gopi and his family are happy once again as his brother is back and all the trials and tribulations of the family have come to an end.
“It used to be part of my daily routine. I would finish my cooking by 7 p.m. so that I would have time for Nadhaswaram ,” says Priya, a homemaker.
Meanwhile, director Thirumurugan, who entered the Guinness Book of World records after he successfully telecast the 1000{+t}{+h}episode live, has already begun his next project.
“He has begun shooting his next venture, Kuladeivam , which will be telecast from Monday. The serial will have a city-oriented theme set around a family that runs a big business concern,” says actor-director Mouli, who plays the lead role in Kuladeivam too. He portrays a grandfather, who balances work and family and takes care of his grandchildren, while their parents are busy.
Breaking all records
As soon as Dinesh Nirudhoddi, a project developer at an IT major, heard that leaked episodes of the new season of his favourite show Game of Thrones were available online, he started streaming the first episode on his cell phone, even while putting the next one for download.
It was people like Dinesh, who prefer watching this show online, that led to over 32 million online downloads through approximately 18 million computers, breaking piracy records.
Though more than 8 million people watched the season premiere, ‘The Wars to Come’, on HBO, as compared to 7.1 million for season 4, it was downloaded millions of times more. “Since season 4 ended on a high note and we had to wait for a year after that, when the first few episodes of the next season were out, my friends started discussing the parts they had seen and I didn’t want that to hamper my viewing experience,” says Shashidharan Ranganathan, a media student.
While the number of people who would rather watch the show at their own convenience is obviously rising, others prefer the old ways. Joshua Philip, a photographer at OneWay Productions and Studios, says, “The episodes are available online, but because I haven’t read the book I would prefer to wait for the story to unfold eventually and watch the episodes as they are aired.”
There have also been reports that since the leak took place through a DVD that was released to a critic, HBO has now decided to shift to a streaming-only policy for critics.
(Reporting by
Deepa H. Ramakrishnan and Yesha Kotak)
