When Hema Malini, Roopa Ganguly failed to recognise Nitish Bharadwaj

Image Courtesy: TV show still

Mumbai: Actor Nitish Bharadwaj went down memory lane and recalled how actresses Hema Malini and Roopa Ganguly were left surprised by his look in "Vishnu Puran".

Nitish had played the different avatars of Lord Vishnu in the 2000 TV show "Vishnu Puran".

Recalling an incident, the actor mentioned: "I remember one time, when the scenes of Lord Parshurama were being shot and those episodes had not gone on air yet, I was sitting on the sets of 'Vishnu Puran' in proper avatar. Roopa Ganguly, who at that time was pursuing her career in Bengali cinema, had come to Mumbai to meet Ravi Chopra and me.

"She kept on searching for me while sitting right next to me, unaware of my presence. I deliberately did not speak to her. It was only 30 minutes later when she asked Ravi Chopra for me, did she realise she was sitting beside me all this while and it took Roopa by surprise."

Talking about another incident, Nitish said: "The same thing also happened when I travelled with Hema Maliniji on a flight. Talking to me about the character, she wondered how Raviji had managed to find an actor to play Parshurma, whose eyes resembled mine. She obviously didn't seem to recognise that I was, in fact, the actor who played the role and so, I decided to play along and told her that Raviji had to audition almost 50-60 actors. It was only a week later that she called me and playfully taunted me for putting her on the spot."

Adding further, he said: "I believe the personality of Parshuram's character along with his appearance and voice was so different that it was really hard to fathom that I could essay such an angry and violent role after having played the calm and composed Krishna."

"Vishnu Puran" will have a re-run on television. It will now air on Zee TV, starting from May 25.