Actor Pankaj Dheer, who played the role of Karna in BR Chopra’s television show ‘Mahabharat’, may not be among us today, but through his character, he will always be present among the audience and fans.
November 9 is the birth anniversary of Dheer, who recently bid goodbye to the world. There are many stories related to his immortal character Karna. Karna, son of Surya from ‘Mahabharata’, the warrior whose stories of charity and bravery still resonate today.
Actors could not pronounce Sanskrit words
Do you know that actor Pankaj Dheer, who portrayed this Karna on TV, initially did not know anything about his own character? He could not pronounce Sanskrit words, due to which he used to make mistakes in speaking dialogues on the set.
In an interview, he had told that two books had helped him a lot in getting into the character of Karna.
The role of Arjun was offered in Mahabharata, not Karna.
Pankaj Dheer was born on 9 November 1956 in Punjab. The actor, who started with small roles in Mumbai’s film industry in the 1980s, was first offered the role of Arjun in the audition for BR Chopra’s serial ‘Mahabharat’.
Her height and facial glow impressed the producers. For three-four months he roamed the streets of Mumbai as ‘Arjun’, but one condition changed everything. The director asked to remove the moustache. Pankaj refused. He said, “Can’t remove the moustache.”
Shocked by this, BR Chopra showed him the way out of the studio and told him to never be seen here again. After a few months the call came and this time he was offered the role of Karna.
Pankaj agreed, but the challenges did not diminish. In an old interview, he admitted that he had studied in English medium. Because of this, he neither knew much about Karna nor did he know a single word of Sanskrit. While speaking dialogues on the set, his pronunciation would become incorrect and he would get nervous.
Then Pankaj became like this philanthropist Karna.
After this, a member of the team gave him amazing advice and said that read Hindi newspapers, read Hindi books, improve pronunciation, which will open your tongue. But, the real magic happened with two compositions. Shivaji Sawant’s ‘Mrityunjay’ and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s ‘Rashmirathi’ helped Dheer a lot. Through ‘Mrityunjay’ he was able to understand the inner pain of Danveer, the neglect of the society and the conflict of war. At the same time, ‘Rashmirathi’ improved his pronunciation and gave depth to the character.
Then what happened was that Pankaj got so much fame from the role of Karna that he reached third place in the popularity poll. In an interview, Pankaj Dheer had also narrated an incident related to the episode of Karna’s death. When thousands of people in a tribal village of Bastar had their heads shaved in mourning. When Pankaj reached there on the request of the then CM of Madhya Pradesh, people weighed him in silver. Pankaj was shocked to see this scene. Pankaj Dheer died on 15 October this year due to cancer.