Mukesh Khanna

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less marks he was forced to do B. Sc Interestingly, while Mukesh Khanna was not interested in acting his elder brother Ved Khanna was a theatre passionate but tragically his father got him married early and tied him with the responsibility to run family business. His father had Khanna Dying and Printing Works factory at Goregaon in Mumbai. During his B. Sc vacation when Mukesh was free his brother took him to Prithvi Theatre. Mukesh was enchanted by theater. Hence his brother suggested him to do Post Graduation and improve his skill in theatre at inter-college drama. Thus Mukesh Khanna joined the Government Law College in Mumbai with the sole intention of learning acting on stage. At the college we won multiple prizes and became Mr. College and secretary of dramatics. After college he decided to sharpen his skills in dramatics by joining Pune’s most renowned FTII (Film and Television Institute of India). Here his colleagues were Naseeruddin Shah and Shakti Kapoor. At FTII he learned the art of developing voice and importance of getting into the skin of character.

Mukesh Khanna declined his debut film with Vinod Khanna Soon after graduating from FTII Mukesh Khanna’s brother Ved Khanna was producing his first film Insaan (1982) staring top actors like Vinod Khanna, Jeetendra, Reena Roy, Amjad Khan etc. It was being directed by Narendra Bedi who had directed hit films like Amitabh Bachchan’s Adalat and many more hit films like Jawani Diwani, Rafoo Chakkar, Khotey Sikkay etc. Hence on the stets when Vinod Khanna saw Mukesh Khanna, he was quite impressed by his dynamic personality and suggested to work in place of Jeetendra as the Jodi of Vinod Khanna and Mukesh Khanna would sound great. But Mukesh Khanna declined as he did not want to work in home production. Narendra Bedi gave break to Mukesh Khanna After coming out from FTII, Mukesh Khanna did not hunted film producers office begging for role instead he started working on stage and it was his act at Prithvi Theater that appealed film director Narendra Bedi and he signed him in his film Khooni, which was the Hindi version of Hollywood him film Godfather. Mukesh was signed to play the lead role of underworld don. When the shooting started there was much publicity that a good actor has arrived in Bollywood hence Mukesh Khanna was signed by many filmmakers. He did over 15 films as hero like Roohi (1981) , Waqt Ke Shahzade (1982), Dard-E-Dil (1983), Captain Barry (1984), Mujhe Kasam Hai (1985) etc. But alas all the films were major debacle at box office and film critics labeled him as Amitabh Bachchan clone. As regards Narendra Bedi’s ambitious film Khooni, it did not see the light of the day as Narendra Bedi died during the making of the film. After Mahabharat TV serial, Mukesh Khanna made his second inning in Bollywood After been discarded from film industry Mukesh Khanna made his second inning in Bollywood after the tremendous success of Mahabharat. The only change between first and second inning was that before he played hero and now he was reduced to playing character roles. He got elderly characters like he played father to most actors from Shahrukh Khan in Guddu to Feroz Khan (Yalgaar). During this phase he did played few interesting characters and worked with top filmmakers like Subhash Ghai’s Saudagar, Raj Sippy’s Saugandh, Anil Sharma’s Tahalka, K.C.Bokadia’s Maidan-E-Jung, Priyadarshan’s Hera Pheri, Dev Anand’s Censor etc. In nutshell in his second inning he played in 60 films. Mukesh Khanna became a children icon with Shaktimaan After huge success of Mahabharata, Mukesh Khanna became famous as Shaktimaan in DD TV serial by the same name. In Shaktimaan he played an Indian superman which won such fame that the serial which began in 1997 continued for 2005 and did over 500 episodes. Children went crazy for the show and left all important work and watched the show. After Shaktimaan, Mukesh Khanna did many TV serials like Chandra anta, The Great Maratha, Yug, Aryamaan – Brahmaand Ka Yodha, Saraab, Waqt Batayega Kaun Apna Kaun Paraya, Pyaar Ka Dard Hai Meetha Meetha Pyaara Pyaara, Waaris etc