Film and television actor Mukesh Khanna, widely recognized for his portrayal of Bhishma in BR Chopra’s Mahabharat, has expressed his displeasure with Nag Ashwin’s latest film, Kalki 2898 AD, which draws heavily from the Hindu epic. On his YouTube channel, Khanna praised the film’s production quality but criticized certain changes made to the Mahabharata‘s storyline, finding them offensive.
Mukesh Khanna specifically took issue with a scene where Krishna curses Ashwatthama by removing his ‘mani’. He stated, “In the film, Krishna curses Ashwatthama by removing his ‘mani’. This never happened in the Mahabharata. I want to ask the makers: how they could defy Veda Vyasa, who said, ‘What does not exist here (in his epic) cannot exist elsewhere’? It wasn’t Krishna who removed Ashwatthama’s ‘mani’. I have been reading the Mahabharata since childhood; I can tell you that it was Draupadi who instructed that his ‘mani’ should be removed after he killed all five of her children.”
The actor further detailed the battle between Arjun and Ashwatthama, where both used the ‘Brahmastra’. He explained that only Arjun knew how to reverse the attack, whereas Ashwatthama, unable to do so, targeted Abhimanyu’s pregnant wife. Krishna protected her for nine months. Khanna questioned, “I am telling this story in such detail because I don’t understand how Krishna could command Ashwatthama to protect him in the future in Kalki. How can someone as powerful as Krishna ask someone like Ashwatthama to protect him?”
According to Mukesh Khanna, every Hindu should feel offended by these changes, comparing the situation to the backlash faced by Prabhas’ previous film, Adipurush. He criticized the liberties taken by the filmmakers and questioned their respect for tradition, suggesting the establishment of a government committee to approve or reject projects with “mythological” elements at the script stage.
Despite these criticisms, Nag Ashwin’s film Kalki 2898 AD, featuring Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Kamal Haasan, and others, has garnered over Rs 700 crore worldwide in just one week, making it the highest-grossing Indian film of the year, either due to its Hollywood-like CGI or general audience unfamiliarity with the Mahabharata.