Veteran actor, Pankaj Dheer is no more. The most famous BR Chopra player dies of a reported secretive battle with cancer at the age of 68, being best known as Karan in Mahabharat.

Being one of the faces of India and the television and film industry, Dheer is familiar to millions of people as the actor who played the role of the mythological character of Karna in the Mahabharat created by BR Chopra. He has been working since the late 80s to date with his exemplary depiction of a wide range of characters spanning the genres.

How underplaying Karn’s role helped Pankaj Dheer

Mahabharat by BR Chopra has developed into an eternal epic. It first aired in 1988, and the characters of the show are still imprinted in the minds of most people.

Karna was one such character who was portrayed by Pankaj Dheer. He was known to use pink anga-vastra and a golden crown. He could have lived amidst the melodramatics such as Shakuni and Duryodhana but he still established himself and won the affection of a good number of people. The show itself is a part of the hearts of my people and due to its re-run, it has since been able to popularise among the millennial kids as well.

Talking of what made Mahabharat so popular to this date, Pankaj Dheer in 2020 told India Today that Mahabharat was a gathering of great minds. “There were such great writers as Pandit Narendra Sharma who worked with Rahi Masoom Reza with the support of BR Chopra and Ravi Chopra. Also, the casting was amazing. It was very peculiar. Today, when you watch it on Colors TV, everything that was working in the day is working. Mahabharat is a show that falls outside of everything,” said Dheer.

When Pankaj Dheer spoke about his statues getting worshipped

Pankaj Dheer who became a popular Karna, admitted that he had no source to refer to play the character, and had to rely on his wit as an actor. “There was no source cited regarding Karna. Only one film was produced based on Mahabharat, where a very trivial actor was used to play Karna,” revealed Dheer adding, “But how Karna would walk, and talk or sit or handle a situation we did not know. All these were things that I learned as an actor through my intellect. It is worth remembering that I had two extremely theatrical characters beside me, which were Duryodhan and Shakuni. Between you, even were I melodramatic, it would be strange. So, I was to play down the role of Karna. I put it on in huge restraint which suited me. People loved me for it. That made it sympathize.”

Pankaj Dheer achieved a lot of popularity as Karna. His photos are employed in text books as an example of Karna and the actor also disclosed that his statues are being venerated in temples in Karnal and Batar. Beating around the bush, he said, people have loved and adored me over the years.

“In the school books on history, even where there is a mention of Karna, they use my picture,” said Pankaj Dheer in 2020. He added, “So as long as such books will be printed in school, I will forever be a source of reference as Karna. I also possess two temples, in which there is Puja, daily. There in Karna mandir, I am worshipped. I have been to those temples. One is at Karnal and one is at Bastar. I have a statue that is eight feet high and people go to worship it. People there love me with the bottom of their heart when I go there. This is to demonstrate that they have recognized me as Karna. This makes it very hard to make other people play that role again.”

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