Mukesh Khanna, popularly known as Shaktimaan, accused Ekta Kapoor of "murdering" Mahabharat in her 2008 show Kahaani Hamaaray Mahaabharaat Ki. The actor, who played Bhishma in the BR Chopra's Mahabharat, criticised the producer for "slaughtering" the epic by "putting a tattoo on Draupadi's shoulder" and "creating a vamp-like image for Satyavati" (great-grandmother of the Pandavas and Kauravas) in a recent interview with Mumbai Mirror. Speaking about his vision about the new version of Shaktimaan, Mukesh Khanna, who previously hinted at a possible sequel to the show, said: "The new version of Shaktimaan cannot be the way Ekta Kapoor made Mahabharat (in 2008) by putting a tattoo on Draupadi's shoulder. She had said that she was making Mahabharat for modern people. Sanskriti kabhi modern nahi ho sakti, putri. Jis din Sanskriti ko modern karoge, khatam ho jayegi' (Culture can never be modern. The day you try to make culture modern, it will be over).
Produced by Mukesh Khanna and directed by Dinkar Jani, Shaktimaan is said to be India's first superhero show. Mr Khanna played the famous superhero and his alter ego Pandit Gangadhar Vidyadhar Mayadhar Omkarnath Shastri in it.
Revealing that many people wanted to buy the rights of Shaktimaan from him, Mr Khanna said he refused their offers as he can't let anyone "murder" Shaktimaan as Ekta Kapoor "murdered" Mahabharat. "I can't let anyone murder Shaktimaan as Ekta has murdered Mahabharat. I had talks with big television production companies but things didn't work out because it didn't fall in their strategy. It's their loss as whoever makes Shaktimaan will earn money. Now, I have a deal with someone," he told Mumbai Mirror.
Mukesh Khanna also accused Ekta Kapoor of playing with facts in Kahaani Hamaaray Mahaabhaarat Ki and said: "If the serial name would be 'Kyunki Greek Bhi Kabhi Hindustani The,' then I would accept Ekta's Mahabharat. Who has given them the right to slaughter an epic? They have changed the actual version of Devarath's 'Bhishma Pratigya' to something else and created a vamp-like image for Satyavati, among other things in the show. They tried to be smarter than Vyas muni (Ved Vyasa, who wrote Mahabharata) to which I have an objection. I want to point out that Ramayana and Mahabharata are not mythologies, they are our histories."
B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat, which aired from 1988 to 1990 on Doordarshan, featured Gajendra Chauhan, Praveen Kumar, Arjun, Sameer Chitre and Sanjeev Chitre as the Pandavas, Roopa Ganguly as Draupadi, Nitish Bharadwaj as Krishna, Mukesh Khanna as Bhishma Pitamah and Punit Issar as Duryodhan.
90's cult shows such as Ramayan, Mahabharat and Shaktimaan among others have returned to the small screen on public demand amid the 21-day lockdown. Earlier, in an interview with Bombay Times, Mukesh Khanna gave a hint about the second edition of Shaktimaan. "For the last three years, we have been working towards bringing out the second edition of Shaktimaan, which is contemporary, but rooted in our values. We were working on the sequel because people wanted to know, aage kya hua," he was quoted as saying.
