Actor Nitish Bharadwaj will always be remembered for playing Lord Krishna in ‘Mahabharat‘. He returns to stage now and will be seen as Lord Krishna again in a play titled ‘Chakravyuh‘ that will be staged in Mumbai very soon. In a chat with ETimes, Nitish talks about his obsession with playing Krishna, how he resonates with his philosophy and his feelings about returning to stage again.
Excerpts:
We are going to see you on stage with Chakravyuh? when was the last time you did a play?
I did professional Marathi and Hindi theatre with Sai Paranjpe and Dinesh Thakur in the 80s. But my last play before Chakravyuh was in the UK, a musical parody of Bollywood stereotypes. We won the London Time Out award and toured across UK and Canada.
So tell us about Chakravyuh…
Mahabharat is an absolutely relevant epic to our lives today and Krishna is the most relevant Godhood to deal with today’s problems. I wanted to bring out the relevance of issues arising from Abhimanyu’s story through Krishna’s perspective. This how Chakravyuh took place in its present form and we have done about 100 shows across India.
People get to see you play Krishna again. What is this obsession of playing Krishna? Is it his philosophy that attracts you all the time?
Krishna is guiding Nitish to evolve spiritually by putting me through worst human conflict in my personal life in which I see the dearest relationships vanish in front of me. I know that the relationships are transient. I now believe that this is why my soul took birth under Krishna’s own birth sign and constellation. Just like Krishna, I will continue to be the entertainer, filmmaker, screenwriter but also spiritually evolve to celebrate even the worst human experiences. I run my life by the principles of his Geeta. Especially my detached sense of duty and that karma is the ultimate dharma. Krishna is preparing me for higher goals for my next birth.
But do you think artistes sometimes do get trapped in an image?
Today’s youth has an open mind to accept me as Sudarshan Chakrapani on the web show ‘Samaantar’ or in films like ‘Mohenjo Daro’ and ‘Kedarnath’ wherin I play grey characters. Besides I now write and direct. So Krishna has taught me survive by using my creative faculties which were also given by him. Tell me then, isn’t it a blessing to be obsessed with Krishna. I am Krishna’s chosen child who must go through the perils of life and yet smile.
