Ramayana – India Chron

Arvind Trivedi, who played Ravana in Ramayan, passes away aged 82

Aditya Sagar — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 04:10:33 +0000

Veteran actor Arvind Trivedi, popularly known for playing Ravana in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana, passed away at the age of 82. Reportedly, he had not been keeping well for some time and was suffering from old-age-related issues. In a media report, his nephew Kaustubh Trivedi confirmed the news and also revealed that he died after suffering a heart attack and organ failure.

Kaustubh told the publication, “He was not keeping well for quite some time, but today he suffered a heart attack and that led to multi-organ failure.” He also said that his last rites will take place at Dahanukarwadi crematorium, Kandivali West, in Mumbai.

Trivedi immortalised the character of Ramayana, which also starred Aruv Govil, Dipika Chikhlia and Sunil Lahiri as Ram, Sita and Lakshman, respectively. The show ran from January 1987 to July 1988. The popularity of the show sky-rocketed again after it aired on TV again during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Apart from Ramayan, Arvind Trivedi also played pivotal roles in Vikram Aur Betaal. He has also acted in around 250 films, mainly in the Gujarati film industry. The actor also dabbled in politics by serving as a Member of Parliament from 1991 to 1996. In 1991, he was elected to Lok Sabha from the Sabarkatha constituency as a member of the BJP.

Condoling the death of Trivedi, Ashoke Pandit, President, Indian Films and TV Director Association tweeted, “Sad to know about the demise of well known theatre,tv & film actor #ArvindTrivedi ji due to massive heart attack. My heartfelt condolences to his entire family & near ones. ॐ शांति !”

Ranbir Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan to be seen together in ‘Ramayana’?

Aditya Sagar — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 14:14:02 +0000

On Saturday, Hrithik Roshan and Ranbir Kapoor were spotted together and the media reported about them visiting producer Jackky Bhagnani’s office. But the duo instead visited Namit Malhotra’s office and had a closed-door meeting around the epic, ‘Ramayana’ with Namit, Madhu Mantena and director Nitesh Tiwari. Interestingly, Namit’s office is in the same building as Jackky, which led to confusion in the media.

Ramayana is produced by Madhu Mantena, Allu Arvind and Namit Malhotra, with Nitesh Tiwari and Ravi Udyawar on board as the two directors. A source close to the development revealed, “This was among their first joint meeting with Hrithik Roshan and Ranbir Kapoor, who play Raavan and Ram respectively. They discussed the massive vision of this project and even the tentative plans of taking it on floors sometime in the second half of next year”. While Ram and Ravana are locked, the team is yet to have an actress on board to play Sita.

This film will mark the first collaboration of Hrithik Roshan and Ranbir Kapoor. Producer Madhu Mantena had informed that an announcement about the cast of Ramayana will be done on the occasion of Diwali. “The team wants to make a massive announcement with a creative featuring the three principal characters – Ram, Ravana and Sita,” the source said.

The idea of this meeting was more of an ice-breaking session between all involved. “Hrithik will be off to Abu Dhabi for the shoot of Vikram Vedha within a fortnight, whereas Ranbir too will gear up to complete director Luv Ranjan’s next, followed by the final 10-day shoot of Brahmastra. Before they get going with other projects, the creative team wanted to meet to discuss some basic stuff around Ramayana.”

Mahesh Babu dropped out Madhu Mantena’s long in the making Hindu mythology “Ramayana”

Abira Dey — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 14:55:41 +0000

Mahesh Babu who is an Indian actor and is popularly known for his Telugu films were offered Madhu Mantena’s most ambitious and film Ramayana. It was also heard that Bollywood’s superstar Hrithik Roshan will also be seen in the film as the demon King of Lanka — Ravana, while the Telugu was selected to play the role of Lord Rama. Unfortunately, Later Mahesh Babu refused to turn up for the film which was supposed to be made at the whopping budget of 600 crores.

Peepingmoon quoted a source close to the film as saying, “Mahesh Babu has signed Bahubali director SS Rajamouli’s next big-scale action movie. He had committed to this project even before Ramayana was offered to him. Rajamouli’s Pan-India project has been planned to be shot sometime mid-next year and the makers of Ramayana are also looking at the same time frame. Both the projects require a long-term commitment from the actor and that led him to choose one between the two. Mahesh Babu simply picked Rajamouli over the Madhu Mantena, Allu Aravind and Namit Malhotra backed multilingual 3D series,”

Reportedly, Mahesh Babu is busy with his film under the direction of SS Rajamouli. The film is penned down beautifully by Rajamouli’s father K.V. Vijayendra Prasad and is said to be an adventure action-drama set which will be shot in Africa. The film will also be high on VFX and is expected to be on theatres around mid-2022.

The report further stated, the makers of the mythological film “Ramayana” was looking forward to cast both the superstars in the lead roles but Mahesh’s dropping out from the film has kept them to pause the shoot for the film.

On Mahesh’s exit from the film, the portal further quoted the source as saying, “Ramayana is still at the nascent stage. Although Madhu Mantena has claimed it to have Bollywood’s biggest ever cast, the reality is no one is signed as yet. Mahesh Babu has turned down, and Hrithik Roshan too cannot be trusted until he starts shooting. They’ve approached Deepika Padukone and Kareena Kapoor Khan for Sita’s role but none of them have responded yet. Mukesh Chhabra is casting actors from across India for supporting characters but the lead A-list casting is still undecided,”

Meanwhile, Mahesh Babu is one among the busy actors and also has two films to complete further.