Mahabharat: From Juhi Chawla being offered Draupadi’s role to Mukesh Khanna’s wish to play Arjun, interesting facts about the show

BR Chopra's cult TV show Mahabharat recently returned to the small screen after more than 30 years. The show which made actors like Mukesh Khannna, Nitish Bharadwaj, Roopa Ganguly household names ran for two years. A look at some interesting facts about the show.

Roopa Ganguly is best remembered for her role of Draupadi in the iconic TV show, but not many know that the character was first offered to Juhi Chawla, but she chose her debut film, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.

In an exclusive interview with E Times TV, Mukesh Khanna revealed he wanted to play Arjun, but he got Bhishma Pitamah's role, "BR Chopra sir offered me the role of Duryodhan, but I ended up playing Bhishma. I always had faith in Mahabharat's success. I wanted to play Arjun, but that role was already taken and though I didn't want to play Bhishma I ended up doing it. Now, I feel it was the best role of my career," he said.

Just like Mukesh Khanna, seasoned actor Nitish Bharadwaj was eyeing some other characters from the mythological saga. The actor, who is till date remembered for playing the role of Krishna, thought he was not experienced enough to play the role. According to reports, he avoided producer BR Chopra's for several days as he didn't want to give the screen test. He wanted to play an important role like Abhimanyu, and he finally bagged Krishna's role.

Not many know that actors who played Nakul and Sahadeva, Sameer Chitre and Sanjeev Chitre, were brothers in real life. They played two of the five Pandavas in Mahabharat. (Photo: Instagram)

Apart from ensemble cast, story, costume drama, Mahabharat is also remembered for the war sequences. During shooting of one of the war scenes, seasoned actor Pankaj Dheer met with a serious accident on the sets. It is reported that his chariot in which he was riding broke down and the horses ran. He was also apparently hit by an arrow near his eyes after which he had to undergo a surgery.

Another interesting fact about the classic show was that its script was written by popular Urdu poet-lyricist-dialogue writer Rahi Masoom Raza. He died after the show came to an end. The famous writer had penned scripts of popular films like Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki, Disco Dancer. He was also the dialogue writer for Amol Palekar’s Golmaal, Lamhe and Rekha and Jeetendra-starrer Judaai.

In an exclusive interview with ETimes TV, Mukesh Khanna revealed, "Rahi Masoom Raza, the writer of the show used to call and praise my acting. But I always told him that it was his writing and our combined effort that did wonders onscreen. We shared a great bonding and rapport. He always told me that when he wrote dialogues for me, his pen automatically used to start running, but when it was for some other actor, like Arjun he used to struggle. In fact, I used to get lengthy dialogues and this had upset Firoz Khan who played Arjun. He had reached BR Chopra's house to complain about the same."

Mahabharat’s casting was very apt as each actor did justice to the character. However, not many know that director-actor Gufi Paintal was the one who did casting for the show. He went on to play the role of Shakuni in Mahabharat.

Once Vinod Khanna was with Mukesh Khanna aka Bhishma Pitamah in a lift in Bangalore and he complimented him saying that he got the cream of Mahabharat. Mukesh Khanna did that show for two years and first bought a Maruti car and then a Contessa.

Mukesh Khanna also shared in the interview that initially, there was a plan of bringing Mahabharat and Ramayan together, but later it was decided that Ramayan will be aired first as bringing two epic sagas together won't be a good idea. It will be too much for the audience and they might not like it, hence Mahabharat got pushed for later. (Photo: Instagram)