Buniyaad is back, not bigger but certainly brighter. Twenty years after the first modern Indian family soap went off the Doordarshan beam, it will return to Sahara on Republic Day in a glossier, colour-corrected avatar.

?The serial had created history at that time. It ran for 105 weeks at a stretch from 1984 to 1986. In fact, it is the Sholay of Indian television. But barely 25 to 30 per cent of today?s viewers have seen it,? says Purnendu Bose, Sahara One Television COO, explaining the reason for its revival.

The connection is not far-fetched. Buniyaad (picture above) came from the Sippy stable, the makers of Sholay. ?The content is fabulous. It had the top writers, editors and cameramen of the time,? says Deepti Bhatnagar, who has acquired the telecast rights from G.P. Sippy?s grandson Sasha.

Alok Nath, the adorable Masterji, explains the phenomenon that the Partition drama was. ?Television was in its infancy then and for the middle class, Doordarshan was the cheapest form of entertainment. When Hum Log came, closely followed by Buniyaad, people were exposed to a new genre ? soap opera. Most could identify with the trauma of Partition. We did so much research on the location, the dialect and the mannerisms to get everything right. So much effort is hardly put into a project these days.?

The success was stunning. ?Even the minor actors in Buniyaad were recognised all over the country in those days,? recalls actor Kanwaljit Singh. ?On Tuesdays and Saturdays, when the show came on air there would be curfew on the streets,? laughs Alok Nath, who has acted in numerous mega ventures on the big and small screens since, but for whom his ?top role? remains Masterji. ?Buniyaad made me what I am,? he confesses.

There have been earlier instances of Doordarshan shows returning on satellite channels. Shaktimaan, for instance, staged a comeback on Pogo last year but after considerable editing, changes in background scores and addition of special effects for a faster-paced story to suit GeneratioNext.

But Buniyaad is Buniyaad. ?It is such a beautiful story and so well-told. In fact, our editor was complaining that he did not have any work on it,? laughs Bhatnagar.

The fact that it is a period drama also justifies keeping the look and feel completely unchanged, she adds. ?Buniyaad was rooted in values which we have left behind in the rat race. It had a soul,? adds Bose.

The editing being done is all of four minutes per episode to accommodate commercial breaks, and even chopping that much is tough. What is being done, though, is a frame-by-frame colour correction on Smoke. ?Such top-of-line edit machines were not available then. And technical finesse is so essential on satellite television that we have to add gloss and effects, manually correct make-up and ensure uniform voice level,? says Bhatnagar.

Buniyaad gets ready to roll again from January 26 at 8 pm on Sahara One.