Newsbreak: Aamir Khan Shelves Mahabharat

 S S Rajamouli  can breathe easy. When  I  last  spoke to him he seemed  a little  concerned about Aamir Khan  beating him to directing a  screen version of the  Mahabharat.

After almost two years  of rigorous research  on  the  subject and a determination to do justice to the epic  saga,Aamir has decided to shelve his  plans  for making Mahabharat , at  least for now.

“Aamir can’t afford  to devote  two years of his life to make  a web series(Mahabharat was  planned as  a web series). He  needs  to quickly  announce his presence in  a big  star-studded  feature film  directed  by a reliable director,” says the source, adding that  the decision to set aside Mahabharat was  not  only commerce-based.

“There  were bound to be unsavoury controversies surrounding the  project . The Hindu radical  groups  would have challenged Aamir’s right to  film the  inviolable epic. Aamir feels now is not  the  right time to make the Mahabharat,” says  the  source.

Significantly, Aamir had opted  out of  astronaut Rakesh Sharma’s bio-pic to concentrate  on his dream  project the Mahabharat. Aamir had generously  passed  on  the Rakesh Sharma  project to Shah Rukh Khan.