Mukesh Khanna: I am not the guardian of Ramayan, but it's our duty to introduce our literature to TikTok generation

Shaktimaan fame Mukesh Khanna made headlines recently for taking a dig at Sonakshi Sinha. The actor said that the rerun of Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan will help younger people like her, who did not know anything about the epic. This was in reference to a KBC episode where Sonakshi didn’t know the answer to a question on Ramayan. This made Sonakshi's father Shatrughan Sinha react strongly to the comment. Without naming Mukesh Khanna, he questioned the actor for being a guardian of Hindi religion. Now Mukesh Khanna has clarified his stance... (By Tanvi Trivedi)

He said, "People have blown my comment out of proportion and presented it wrongly to Shatruji. I have known him for long and have immense respect for him. I took Sonakshi’s name as a mere example. It does not mean I was trying to demean her or question her knowledge. My intention was not to target her."

He said, "I am shocked to see how the current generation is not aware of many things. Recently, I was watching a video in which an IT student didn’t know whose maternal uncle Kans was. Someone even answered ‘Duryodhan’ to that question."

He shared, "I am not claiming that I am the guardian of Ramayan and Hindu literature, but as a citizen of India, I do feel that it is our duty to introduce our literature and history to today’s generation because they are more interested in TikTok and Harry Potter. Once again, if Shatruji feels that taking Sonakshi’s name was a mistake, then yes, it is. But, it was not intentional."

On TV's Lord Krishna aka Nitish Bharadwaj lashing out at his comments, Mukesh Khanna shot back. "Should I not say anything just because today’s generation will stop respecting me? I have never minced words and have always been honest about my thoughts, but Nitish Bharadwaj is diplomatic."

He added in the same breath, "Nitish has also said that the current generation will never know about Ramayan and Mahabharat because our school textbooks don’t have any chapters on the epics. Well, there are no chapters on Harry Potter either, but the young generation knows about it. When we were growing up, our textbooks didn’t have chapters on the epics, but our parents introduced us to them."

Mukesh was also condemned by Puneet Issar as he suggested the former should have some grace. Mukesh said "Puneet is just trying to promote his play, which glorifies Duryodhan. He feels that it is his interpretation of Mahabharat and Duryodhan’s character. He also feels that Ekta Kapoor’s 'Mahabharat' was her interpretation of the epic. Well, Ekta’s 'Mahabharat' looked like Greeks were playing Hindustanis."

Mukesh concluded, "I would like to tell all pseudo intellectuals that I do have the right to say that these versions are not based on the original, and they should watch the reruns of Ramanand Sagar’s 'Ramayan' and BR Chopra’s 'Mahabharat'."