24-04-2025
BR Chopra Defended Muslim Writer For TV's Mahabharat, Said People Thought Of It As 'Hindu Story': 'It Isn't'
In the Making of Mahabharat, BR Chopra said that making Mahabharat was a dream for many producers, including him. But he knew the story was too big for a short film. 'Every producer dreams of making Mahabharat. I also wanted to make it but I knew that you can't make it in a three hour film. If you want to make it, you have to make it in a long format, and the only option for that was television," he had said.
For Mahabharat to work, BR Chopra knew it needed to be easy for everyone to follow. With so many characters and events, the story had to be clear. Once the audience understood who the good and bad characters were, the show needed something to tie it all together. That's when BR Chopra found Rahi Masoom Raza. In the Making of Mahabharat, Chopra said they needed a narrator for each episode to explain the events. After a lot of discussion, Raza came up with the famous line, 'Main Samay hoon" (I am Time), suggesting Time be the narrator. BR Chopra agreed right away. He said, 'All the restrictions that a Muslim man will write a Hindu story… People think of this as a Hindu story. We don't think so but anyway… Everything just went out of the window. The way he wrote it, we signed him."
people were not happy about Rahi Masoom Raza joining the writing team. When Doordarshan saw the episode plan from BR Films, they were mostly happy but asked how a Muslim writer could write the show. BR Chopra's daughter-in-law, Renu, shared this on Kapil Sharma's show. She said Chopra said,
