Nitish Bharadwaj aka Lord Krishna: New gen may compare basic VFX of Mahabharat to today’s Hollywood

Actor Nitish Bharadwaj, who portrayed the iconic role of Lord Krishna in BR Chopra’s Mahabharat is elated that the show is coming back on the small screen but also shares his apprehensions.

As BR Chopra’s mythological series, Mahabharat, is having a successful re-run on the small screen amid the ongoing lockdown, actor Nitish Bharadwaj, who took on the “colossal task of portraying Lord Krishna” in the show, has an interesting take on whether this could be a unifying element in a house with viewers from different generations.

Nitish Bharadwaj feels that Doordarshan was a king in TV’s monopolistic era but it failed to withstand innovative marketing policies of private TV networks.

“The new generation, the millennials, have seen much better visual effects and grandeur from Hollywood in the last 20 years. So they may compare the basic VFX of Mahabharat to today’s Hollywood. But it is upto the older generations to tell them beforehand that in the 1980’s, India didn’t have any technology at all and yet the Chopras managed to give some VFX for the time,” Bharadwaj tells us.

What he, however, hopes is the youth focusses on the fine dialogues written by Rahi Masoom Raza. “They are relevant to all aspects of human strife, for all times to come... They’ll help them to understand complexities of human relations and understand how to face life. The youth is lucky that such an exceptional serial is being broadcast again and this is their chance to understand Krishna’s immortal philosophy of the Gita,” he adds.

Recounting how the show gave him “overnight stardom along with an overwhelming responsibility”, Bharadwaj says Chopra had told him that the ambitious serial would collapse if his portrayal of Krishna failed. But he remembers, “The most nostalgic moment for me was when BR Uncle told me that he had become my fan. Another moment was when Rahi saheb complimented me saying, ‘When I hear you speak the dialogues written by me, I believe people who say that I am a good writer’. I get goosebumps when I think of these moments even today,” Bharadwaj says.

Hopeful that public broadcaster Doordarshan, which is also re-telecasting Ramayan among other old and gold shows, does a good job of marketing them in today’s competitive TV environment “so that they can reclaim their lost ground”.

“DD was a king in TV’s monopolistic era but it failed to withstand innovative marketing policies of private TV networks. Doordarshan (and not Akashwani) needs to overhaul its policies,” says the actor, who is indulging in mediation, Yoga, reading and brushing up his screenwriting and directorial skills by seeing online masterclass of Hollywood masters, catching up with old friends and communicating with fans on social media, during this ‘quarantime’.