biggest mistake - Page 14

I personally think Mohit is going a great job with his roles as Mahadev/Swami Adiyogi and Jalandhar.

Yes, they certainly could have had a different actor playing the role of Jalandhar, but they wanted Mohit to do it (I guess to play up the fact that Jalandhar is born from Mahadev's ansh) and he obviously was willing to do so. We have read in interviews that Mohit wants to do more action roles in future, so playing Jalandhar is certainly one way for him to get more action scenes now.

I think he has been playing his contrasting roles very well - the great and good Mahadev (and Swami Adiyogi) and the on-the-road-to-evil-and-arrogance Jalandhar. I am personally not reminded of Mahadev when I see Jalandhar (just like I am not reminded of any of Mohit's characters from his previous shows/movies), and I like that the CVs decided to show Jalandhar's journey to becoming arrogant and evil rather than having him evil from birth. I like this even though it may not be strictly Puranic because it highlights to us that people are affected/influenced by the people and circumstances in our lives and that we are not all purely "good" or "evil" right from the outset. I think this is one thing that we certainly need to be reminded of at times, and DKDM is a good place for us to be reminded of such things while we are also learning about things such as Ashtanga Yoga and self-realisation etc.

Back to Jalandhar, no matter who is playing him, the way he is portrayed is the way the CVs decided to show him, so he would have had the tilted head etc anyway even if someone else was playing him. I guess the reason grown-up Jalandhar has more of these quirks than he did when he was a child is probably to show us that he is now further along the path to evil/psychosis than he was he was little (even though he is still supposed to be only some days/months old anyway!) and that he is now even more single-minded in his quest for revenge against Indra for the death of his mother. (After all, his tilted head appeared after he found out Indra was her killer).

Along with all his different roles in his previous shows/movies and his work as Mahadev and all his various guises in DKDM, I think playing the very contrasting role of the soon-to-be-villainous Jalandhar himself will only help to further showcase Mohit's versatility as an actor. (I think it should also help convince anyone who still thinks that he can only play positive/God/good-guy roles to realise that this is simply not the case, and help him avoid being typecast!)

At the moment I like Jalandhar's sense of justice and I'm sure that as the show progresses I will grow to dislike his character as he becomes more arrogant and evil (even though I will continue to like Mohit and Mahadev), because he is supposed to be a villain (Mahadev's greatest enemy, after all!), and this will be a testament to Mohit's acting talent.

I can only admire Mohit for taking up Jalandhar's very contrasting role at the same time as playing Mahadev, and for playing them both with such dedication, without mixing them up (my POV). I just hope that he is enjoying this challenge and is not being overworked, especially when he is also being sent interstate for the Mahadev Ganga Mahostav!