New Delhi, Nov. 6 -- India took its shoes off to watch this show.

On Sunday mornings in 1987, television momentarily became a place of worship. The TV set was wiped clean, the living room was rendered free of ashtrays, and in far too many households across the country, footwear was parked outside the door. Nobody had instructed the nation to do this. There was no government circular, no religious injunction, no promotional campaign by Doordarshan. It simply seemed appropriate. The remarkable thing about Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan is not that it was watched by an extraordinary number of Indians. It is that it changed their behaviour.

India watched Ramayan less like a serial and more like a cricket match: with pre-existing devotion and acco...