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One of the few Indian actors who has had the privilege of starring in two of the most iconic television series ever made — Mahabharat (1988-90) and Shaktimaan (1997-2005) — Mukesh Khanna is still highly regarded for his roles in these shows. While Khanna played the titular character in the superhero series Shaktimaan, which he himself created, he appeared as Bhishma in the epic series Mahabharat, created by BR Chopra based on the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata.
Over the years, Mahabharata has been the inspiration for numerous films and TV shows, yet Chopra’s version remains a gold standard even after three decades. One of the many adaptations of this epic was the series Kahaani Hamaaray Mahaabhaarat Ki, which aired on 9X in 2008. Produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under their Balaji Telefilms banner, the show featured Mrunal Jain, Hiten Tejwani, Ronit Roy, Anita Hassanandani, Uma Shanker and Aryan Vaid in the roles of Krishna, Karna, Bhishma, Draupadi, Yudhishthir and Duryodhan, respectively.
However, Khanna, known for his outspoken nature, recently criticized the show for presenting the characters as “models.” During an appearance on Bollywood Bubble’s podcast Let’s Talk, when asked about adapting Mahabharata into a movie, he remarked, “Should there be an effort to create it? Yes, every person has the right to try to make something.”
He continued, “Several people have tried to recreate it as a serial, including a few big names like Star, but no one came close to the original because they didn’t have Dr Rahi Masoom Raza (Mahabharat’s screenwriter), they didn’t have Pandit Narendra Sharma (writer), and they lacked the dedication. They attempted to tamper with our scriptures — Ekta Kapoor gave Draupadi a tattoo and the Pandavas were shown as models with bare chests.”
“In our version, Bhim was played by Praveen Kumar, Arjun by Feroz Khan, Pankaj Dheer as Karna, and Yudhishthir by Gajendra Chauhan. These actors portrayed their characters so well that people still remember them. Even Nakul and Sahadev had a distinct identity. In the recent Mahabharata, forgive me, I won’t criticise, but I keep saying, ‘I’m visually discerning.’ If I see something wrong, I’ll point it out. And why shouldn’t I? Everything is visible. Among the five Pandavas, I couldn’t differentiate between them. They didn’t care about the costumes, they weren’t wearing proper attire, they were just today’s models,” he added.
“Today’s Arjun, Karna, and Bhim were just made slightly taller, but that’s not enough. The point is, that we had dedication. Nowadays, everything has become commercialised. There’s no sense of storytelling like what Chopra sahab had. Today, people depend on gimmicks and sets. So, Mahabharata wasn’t successfully recreated. Three different Mahabharata were made and someone even said that they were just trying to copy the original. I said, ‘What can they do? They don’t have any other option.’,” the thespian pointed out.
In addition to Khanna, Chopra’s series also starred Nitish Bharadwaj, Pankaj Dheer, Puneet Issar, Roopa Ganguly, Praveen Kumar, Gajendra Chauhan, Gufi Paintal and Firoz Khan in the roles of Krishna, Karna, Duryodhan, Draupadi, Bhim, Yudhishthir, Shakuni and Arjun, respectively.
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