Pankaj Dheer nearly went blind in Mahabharat accident with ‘Arjun’, ‘Bheem’ broke all his fingers: ‘My son scolded him, asked how dare you’

Pankaj Dheer had spoken about how the physically demanding role of Karna in Mahabharat took a toll on him. He also recalled getting paid Rs 3000 per episode for the role.

By: Entertainment Desk

Chennai | October 15, 2025 04:45 PM IST

4 min read

Pankaj Dheer almost went blind after an arrow hit his eye during Mahabharat shoot.

Actor Pankaj Dheer breathed his last on Wednesday after his battle with cancer. The actor was known for playing the iconic role of Karna in BR Chopra’s Mahabharat. In an old interaction, Pankaj had spoken about how the physically demanding role took a toll on him and how he often encountered near-fatal accidents while shooting Mahabharat.

Speaking on DD Urdu, Pankaj spoke about getting injured near his eye with an arrow during the Mahabharat shoot. He shared, “The fight was going on between Karna and Arjun. The arrow was supposed to touch my bow and it was supposed to break, but due to some technical fault, the arrow rammed into the corner of my eye. When they took out the arrow, a fountain of blood came out. Everyone got ice but I was just able to hear people saying, ‘Pankaj Dheer andha hogaeya hai (Pankaj Dheer has become blind)’. And I was thinking my career has just started what has happened to me?”

He added, “The show was being shot in Film City and it was jungle at that time. There was no doctor nearby. They took me to a small dispensary, where there was an old doctor sitting in that small room. He gave me injections, gave me stitches and bandaged my eye.”

While Pankaj was unsure of getting treatment at a small dispensary, the old doctor saved his eye and, with that, his career as an actor. But there was no rest for Pankaj as he recalled getting a call from Ravi Chopra, BR Chopra’s son, who shared that they required him to shoot his scene because otherwise the episode wouldn’t go forward. However, they faced a problem as Pankaj had a bandage on his eye. The makers then shot him from one side, “They shot from one side of my face and minimized my bandage and that’s how I completed that scene,” he recalled.

Also read | Pankaj Dheer dies: Actor was offered Arjuna’s role in Mahabharat; BR Chopra threw him out after he refused to shave moustache

He recalled another accident on the set of the show when he had to dismount a running chariot to save his life. He recalled, “During a war scene, when my chariot was running. The welding of the chariot broke and the charioteer fell down and the wheel drove over him, breaking his ribs and cutting his stomach. He was in a very bad condition, then the horses separated from the chariot, and I was on a free running chariot that was running down a slope. Ahead of the slope there was a gorge. I realised that if I don’t jump off the chariot, I will fall in the gorge. I quickly jumped off the chariot. I got injured in my knees, but I saved my life.”

Pankaj also recalled getting beaten by Praveen Kumar Sobti, the actor and discus thrower who played Bheem in the show, so hard that the fight broke all his fingers. He said, “Another accident was when I had fight with Bheem and the actor who played Bheem was very heavy, and he wasn’t an actor, so he would literally hit me very hard. The fight was such that I broke all my fingers. I remember my son was eight years old at that time, and after he saw Bheem hitting me so hard, he scolded him.”

In another interaction with Farah Khan on her vlog, Pankaj shared that the top actors of Mahabharat were paid Rs 3,000 per episode. “We were paid Rs 3000 per episode, but if we didn’t shoot for the week, then we will not get that money also. So our main income wasn’t the show. It was going for showroom openings, marriages.”

From the homepage