After ‘Tanhaji’, it’s now bald ‘Chanakya’ role for Ajay Devgn !

Chaitanya Padukone

While interviewing Ajay Devgn before the release of ‘Tanhaji’, he had mentioned to me that playing historical icons has fascinated him immensely and he would continue to take up more such legendary characters. The latest news that we hear is that Ajay is all set to play the historical titular role ‘Chanakya’ who as an intelligent, tactful revered teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist, strategist was the royal political advisor to  Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. The relevance of this iconic legend is testified by the fact that the diplomatic enclave in New Delhi is named Chanakyapuri in honour of Chanakya.  Currently, Doordarshan has started telecast of the retro-rewind TV series on Chanakya which has Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi playing the title-role.

The mega- movie on ‘Kautilya’ (Chanakya)  would be directed by writer-director Neeraj Pandey ( of ‘ A Wednesday’ and ‘Aiyaary’ fame ) and the project would go on the floors hopefully by end of this year 2020, provided total normalcy is restored vis-à-vis the Corona health-scare.  Currently due to the on-going lockdown stay-at-home scenario, director Neeraj has shared that he is busy video-conferencing with his creative team heads to keep the pre-production work-in-steady-progress. Interestingly, Ajay would be required to sport a ‘bald’ look  by either using premium prosthetics or maybe by actually having his hair shaved off. But sources and director Neeraj say that Devgn is planning to go ‘bald’ to give a realistic impact. Interestingly, Ajay’s real-life mother-in-law veteran versatile star-actress Tanuja had sported a close-cropped  ‘bald look’ in the role of a widow in the acclaimed Marathi movie ‘Pitruroon’ (2013), directed by noted actor Nitish ( ‘Krishna’) Bharadwaj. Meanwhile Ajay is will soon be completing two more period movies ‘Bhuj—The Pride of India’ ( 1971 Indo-Pak war) and ‘Maidaan’ which portrays the golden decade of Indian football between 1952 and 1962 where the macho ‘Singham’ actor plays  the role of this real-life football coach Syed Abdul Rahim.