Pankaj Dheer of Karna in Mahabhrat Fame

"Get out of here. There's the door. Go out. And never come here again." BR Chopra said angrily to Pankaj Dheer. That's how was Pankaj Dheer thrown out of BR Chopra's office. 

When Pankaj Dheer came outside Chopra Sahab's office, many people asked him what are you doing? It's such a small thing. Agree with it. Everything will be back to normal after a few days. But Pankaj Dheer flatly refused and left from there. 

This incident is related to the casting of Mahabharata. 

Very few people would know that Pankaj Dheer was first chosen by Dr Rahi Masoom Raza and Pandit Narendra Sharma ji for the role of Arjuna. Pankaj Dheer was very happy then & also signed the contract. The news spread among his friends and relatives that Pankaj is going to play Arjun in Mahabharata. Almost two months passed like this.

When the third month came, one day BR Chopra called Pankaj Dheer to meet him. 

When Pankaj came to meet him in his office, Chopra sahab said, "Barkhurdaar, to play this role you will have to shave off your moustache." At first, Pankaj Dheer was very surprised. 

But then he said clearly, "I will not be able to do this Sir." 

BR Chopra found it very strange that Pankaj Dheer refused like this. When he asked the reason, Pankaj ji said, "The balance of my face is such that if I remove my moustache, my face will not look good." 

Then BR Chopra said, "Are you an actor or what? Can't you shave off a moustache for such a big role?" Pankaj Dheer again said the same thing, "I will not be able to shave off my moustache Sir." 

That's when BR Chopra got angry at Pankaj Dheer and asked him to leave the office. 

Now the question must be arising in your mind that when BR Chopra was so angry with Pankaj Dheer, then why did he give Pankaj Dheer the role of Karna? 

So the story is that after a few months, one day again BR Chopra called Pankaj Dheer. He asked Pankaj ji to come to his office. When Pankaj Dheer reached to meet him, he said, "Will you play the role of Karna?" 

He immediately asked Chopra Sahab, "I will not have to cut my moustache, right sir?" BR Chopra told him that there would be no need to cut your moustache for this role. 

Pankaj Dheer happily said to Chopra Sahab, "Sure. I will definitely play this role." 

In this way, once again Pankaj Dheer ji got entry in Mahabharata.

Yesterday was Pankaj Dheer's birthday. 

Pankaj Dheer has turned 65. Pankaj Dheer was born on 9 November 1959. Now Pankaj believes that rejecting the role of Arjun because of his moustache was a big mistake. Because as an actor he should always be ready for any kind of getup. But since he was naive back then, he did not understand this. 

While wishing Pankaj Dheer a happy birthday, let's also know some more interesting things related to his character "Karna" from the Mahabharata show.

After playing the character of Karna, Pankaj Dheer became a very popular face in the country. In an interview, Pankaj Dheer says that there used to be a popularity poll in those days. Rajiv Gandhi was number one in that poll. Amitabh Bachchan was number two. And Pankaj Dheer used to be number three. 

His popularity was such that even if Pankaj Dheer reached the far-flung villages of the country, people used to give him a lot of love and respect. People did not even know his real name. Everyone knew him only by the name of Karna. 

Pankaj Dheer says that when he was signed up for the Karna role, he did not know Karna properly. Since he grew up in Mumbai and was educated in English medium, he did not have any knowledge of Sanskrit. Nor was he very familiar with Indian scriptures. 

So when Dr Rahi Masoom Raza gave Pankaj Dheer his dialogues for the first time, he started sweating. Pankaj Dheer met Rahi Sahab and told him about his problem. Rahi Masoom Raza told him, "Do one thing son. There is a newspaper in Hindi named Navbharat Times. Buy it and read it loudly at home. So that you can get used to Hindi and your tongue opens up.

"On the advice of Dr Rahi Masoom Raza, Pankaj Dheer started reading the newspaper as usual. He also read two books named Rashmirathi by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and Mrityunjay by Shivaji Sawant. Rahi ji had also suggested Pankaj Dheer to read these two books. 

Both these suggestions of Rahi Masoom Raza ji were very useful for Pankaj Dheer. This practice helped him a lot in portraying the character of Karna in front of the camera. Pankaj Dheer says he did not blink even once in any of his scenes of Mahabharata. He did this because Karna was a charioteer's son. Therefore, he must have been very alert while sitting among kings and emperors. He must not have blinked his eyes.

Another experiment that Pankaj Dheer ji did with the role of Karna was that he did not speak very loudly in his dialogues. Because the other two characters of Mahabharata with whom he spent most of his time were very loud-speaking characters. 

Those characters were Duryodhana and Shakuni Mama. In such a situation, if Karna also spoke loudly, it would not have looked different. Pankaj Dheer presented Karna as a person who spoke softly. This experiment of his was also very successful. Karna's character came out very well by doing this.

When the episode of Karna's death came in Mahabharata, the audience started missing Karna a lot. This was the time when Arjun Singh used to be the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. One day Arjun Singh called BR Chopra's office. He asked where is the actor who plays Karna's character? 

BR Chopra asked him what the matter was? Arjun Singh told him that he would have to be sent to meet some tribals in Bastar district. Pankaj Dheer reached Bhopal. From there he was taken to Bastar by helicopter. And when Pankaj Dheer reached among the tribals, he was very surprised. 

Pankaj Dheer says that there were about four to five thousand people. All of them had shaved their heads in grief of Karna's death in Mahabharata.

At that time Pankaj Dheer could not believe his eyes. He was surprised. And was thinking that this also happens in our country? When Pankaj Dheer reached among those people, they were very happy. 

Whoever saw him, would fold his hands. Pankaj ji told them that I was absolutely safe. Death has happened only in the serial. Later those people weighed Pankaj Dheer ji in silver.