Podcast: Amitabh Bachchan on ‘Coolie’, and a Second Chance at Life

“Prayer kept me alive,” wrote Amitabh Bachchan in his blog about recovering post the accident during Coolie.

Amitabh Bachchan’s Coolie.

(Photo: Harsh Sahani)

It was July of 1982 when Amitabh Bachchan met with a serious accident on the sets of Coolie. He was critically injured. When he walked out of the Breach Candy hospital after a month, he called it his second birth.

Just like his reel life, Bachchan’s real life has been full of drama. In his blogs he has vividly recounted several such episodes. On his 75th birthday, The Quint has done a series of podcast from Amitabh Bachchan’s blog about his life, before he became the phenomenon that he is. These are his stories from school, his reflections about life, which offer us a tiny peep into the parallel universe of Amitabh Bachchan.

The following one is about his near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie.

Also Read: Harivansh Rai’s Lessons to an Angry Young Amitabh

People’s Prayers Saved Me

It’s the day in Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai, after the ‘Coolie’ accident that I lived again. A time when the prayers of hundreds of well wishers and fans, when the diligent and hard work of the doctors at the Hospital, brought me back to life. This is the debt that I shall never be able to pay back and which I talk of so often.

I am with you today because of those prayers. Prayers from so many I never knew, never met and probably never shall. But I know that you are there and there in my heart with the greatest of affection and love. I thank you.

Physical and mental pain has the capacity to alter your countenance. It converts perfectly normal circumstances into the abnormal and acts as a grotesque reflection on to those that come in its close proximity. Yesterday on set was a day full of humour and camaraderie. There was laughter and joy and smiles and back slapping. There was song and romance, there was rhythmic movement, the air was throbbing with happiness.

Amitabh Bachchan comes out of the Breach Candy hospital in 1982. “The prayers of the people saved me,” he said. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Also Read: Big B’s Journey From Sherwood to ‘Shahenshah’

Today, because of my physical pain, the air is different. The faces are grim and sombre. There is apprehension. It is not because they feel different today. It is because they feel my discomfort and perhaps give it respect. I am humbled by their attitude. I wish I could have been like yesterday, but it is difficult to suppress my agony. So much concern for the fellow being. So much concern for the fellow artist. I am blessed to be in such company.

Thank you members of the unit. I shall endeavour to bring cheer. It is what we must all do, despite our own personal despair. Pain has so many manifestations. But it has always been its conditioning that has stood out. No one has the ability to take over someone else’s agony. But reaching out, holding and embracing it does symbolically at least bring in some measure of relief.

Amitabh Bachchan on the sets of ‘Coolie’.(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Amit Nadkar)

And I am taken back as I write to my days in the August of 1982 at the Breach Candy Hospital as I lay in the ICU, fighting for my life after the injury on the sets of ‘Coolie’.

Glass partitions separate each cabin from the other. The ominous sounds of life saving gadgetry and the gentle patter of the most committed nurses I have ever seen, are the only sounds that break the deathly silence. Deathly because after the ICU there no further stops.

My neighbour to my left would every morning turn his face towards me and through the tubes and wires and equipment fixed on to him would raise his hand in a thumbs up gesture, and greet me with the faintest of smiles.

I had no voice. My trachea was punctured and a machine that breathed for me was fitted to it. My lips could form words but there was no sound. I would respond back to fellow sufferer with a similar gesture.

The rest of the day went struggling with the treatment and with the doctors. The mornings would be looked forward to for our little exchange. Strange how a simple gesture could carry so much anticipation. I think I was repairing faster than him.

For, after a month or perhaps two, one never knows passage of time in ICUs, I was put on my feet.

I crumbled. My legs were rubber. It was my first realisation of the severity of my condition. Would I have to live the rest of my life as a cripple? What would I do? I would never be able to act again.

Many sleepless nights went by, until one night when there was no one in the room I got up on my own with great effort, slung my feet by the bed and holding on to it attempted to stand. It took me a couple of hours to accomplish that. But accomplish I did.

Then I decided the next night to move. I would manage a few inches, tire and retire. The edge of the room was perhaps 3-4 feet away and it became my final destination. I had to move and walk there on my own and back. This I resolved.

Every night the distance covered reduced my ultimate goal and there was a sense of happy achievement. Day by day the strength came back, until it was possible for me to walk to the washroom on my own. I had fought with the authorities on this.

Normally a patient in this condition would have been shifted to a general room, but I had in my bravado declared ‘I came in here on a stretcher, and when I leave I want to walk out.’

My neighbour had of course through out this ‘walkathon’ of mine been a patient observer. And even though he remained immobile, his hand and the thumbs up remained part of his daily cheer for me.

One morning after exchanging our greetings I walked across to the washroom and on returning within some minutes, found my neighbour’s bed empty. I asked the nurse where he was. She stood silently in front of me and pointed her finger to the sky and moved on. I stood there motionless. But just a few minutes ago he had greeted me, I questioned.

Amitabh Bachchan is recovering at home post the coolie accident. In this picture he is with his entire family.(Photo Courtesy: Instagram)

Stoic expressions and a ‘let’s get on to the next critical patient’ attitude pervaded the ICU. There was no room for emotion, because if there were, there would be very few in the nursing profession that would last.

My neighbour in the room next door perhaps knew his end was near, but never did he ever express anything else but hope and love when I used to turn to him every morning.

I suffer my little tooth ache and transform the attitude on the set to my own misery. How wrong. I must never allow my personal pain to be borne by others.