Girja Shankar Shares Experience Of Playing Dhritrashtra In B. R Chopra’s Mahabharat

Famously known as Dhritrashtra, actor Girja Shankar reminisce the days before he started shooting for Mahabharat. The actor was barely 28 when he accepted to play Dhritrashtra, a father of Kauravas in B. R. Chopra‘s Mahabharat. He says that while he was optimistic about playing this character with an ease, he understood the important of playing a role on screen after reading about it. He was sure to play the character looking straight and acting blind, when he was suggested to wear lenses to look blind.

 

The actor stays in Los Angeles these days and settled there. He travels to India frequently for Punjabi films he does. He recently shared his experiences of shooting Mahabharat when now he’s cherishing life in his 60s . He said that this was the most challenging character as Dhritrashtra was blind and moreover he was in a great conflict through out his life, till the last frame of the series. Girja says that he was initially apprehensive about playing this role at the age of 28, but only after reading the book on which the show was based, he understood the importance of Dhritrashtra in Mahabharat. Recalling the days from shoot he says that he used to get tired during the shoots as he trained his eyes to look straight for two years almost and had to take frequent breaks while shooting.He was offered to wear lenses by Ravi Chopra but he insisted to do it naturally and fortunately, after the first take Mr Ravi Chopra told him that he was perfectly fine naturally, nothing else to do.