BySiddhi Jain

September 11, 2019 (IANSlife) Before India woke up to a slew of television channels and programmes to choose from, BR Chopra’s 1980s tele-series “Mahabharat” became a mythological classic which is still remembered with a tinge of nostalgia. The compelling image of its star performer Krishna, played by Nitish Bhardwaj, has stuck as much with the actor as his audience.

 

“The Krishna image will always be supreme for me because it left such a huge impact on people’s minds. Krishna is like an elder brother. In life’s ups and downs, it’s Krishna and his philosophy that help me. Many times in my life I had to wear a Krishna-thinking cap to find solutions,” Bhardwaj, 56, told IANSlife over phone.

The actor, who had a brief stint in politics as a BJP parliamentarian from Jamshedpur in 1996, credits the soap opera as so timeless that we still see its re-runs.

“It is one of the most re-run serials of this country. The moment one re-run finishes on a channel, immediately within a month or two, another re-run starts on some other channel.

 

“It was so fantastically written by Rahi Masoom Raza at that time that it is still relevant today, and you always learn something from those dialogues,” he added.

Thirty years later, the actor-director has recreated Krishna on stage.

‘Chakravyuh’, a play by Film and Theatre Society and directed by Atul Satya Koushik, stars Bhardwaj, and seeks to answer questions of the Mahabharat that are applicable to modern life.

“I always believe that stories from Mahabharat are relevant to today’s ‘kalyuga’ also. For instance, when Abhimanyu (Arjun’s son) dies, how do you console yourself? Uttara (Abhimanyu’s wife) became a single mother, how should single mothers bring up their children? What is the meaning of chakravyuh per se?”

 

Bhardwaj tags the play as being 10 steps ahead of Krishna’s portrayal. He adds that although it is in the same milieu of history and mythology, the play tackles today’s questions.

After decades, his is one of the most recalled characters from the tele-series.

The thespian also finds it humbling that those who played Krishna after him on screen -- actors Saurabh Raj Jain and Swapnil Joshi -- say they look up to his original performance.

Bhardwaj has no plans to re-join politics at the moment, and says that his focus is solely on his acting and directorial career.

In 2014, his debut as a director with Marathi feature film ‘Pittruroon’, starring Kajol’s mother Tanuja, was received well. He is now planning to make a film in Hindi, and is acting in a web series on a subject he has “never ever done before”.

 

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Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in

Editing by Muskan Aggarwal and N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe