I was keen to put into thought a topic that has in a way not really troubled me but would I am certain, be of some interest to the readers. However, I think it can wait for a while. What cannot is the medical calendar, and that is what I intend to start today.

The 1982 episode of the Coolie accident is so well documented by the media, that apart from some personal views on the episode, there is not much in repeating it. The intestine had been ruptured by either the blow to the stomach through a punch or the edge of the table. Immediate detection of it would have been a most simple procedure and repair would not have been so alarming. But Bangalore in 1982 was not the Bengaluru of today. Medical facilities were limited and not as sophisticated as the issue under consideration demanded. A portable x-ray was used to diagnose what my excruciating pain in the stomach was due to. A smoked like cloud above the diaphragm was visible but ever so light that it did not draw the attention of the doctors. Apparently that is an indication that there has been a rupture in the intestine and the gases are collecting. A wait of 72 hours followed without detection or surgery. Deadly in the circumstances, because it allowed all the impurities to drop into the stomach for all this while, and attack all the other organs. I also went onto what is commonly known in the medical profession as the ‘vip syndrome’, where doctors are hesitant to involve themselves into any procedure because of the sensitivity of the patients name. Any way the surgery did take place in limited facilities, but with the warning that the stomach would rupture again and another surgery would be needed soon. So shift to Mumbai asap. The ride to Mumbai and the second surgery and the coma condition and the almost dead situation and the ampules of adrenalin that worked, the recovery and the days after, have been spoken of before. But a stomach surgery, indeed two in quick succession always have the possibility of hernia developing. And that is what is of concern now. There are now two urgent hernia in the lower abdomen which have swelled up dangerously and cause me problems. Sharp pains when I stand for too long, or walk too much. During dance and action scenes there is huge pain and I counter that with a hernia belt, which is temporary and not really a cure. So the docs have been after me for a surgery, well two actually on either side of the abdomen, and I have been avoiding it because of my busy schedule, but I shall have to take care of it now. And now after my third surgery of the stomach a few years back when I was diagnosed for diverticulitus, there is another hernia that is developing. Of that later say docs. Because of the several times that the stomach has been opened up there are lesions and they at times stick and cause problems. Also at the time of the first one in 1982, in order to drain the stomach of its impurities, the acute peritonitis, a number of holes were made in the stomach to allow them to flow out. They are flat corrugated like rubber strips that stick out of the stomach and then when all is clear after several days they are removed and the skin heals over it, but leaves a scar. I used to joke after my recovery that I now had a mini golf course on my stomach ; I actually counted the holes and they were 18. Once the stomach muscle is cut it never gets back to its original strength. And since all body action, at least all the vital ones are controlled by the stomach muscle, my actions or the ability to execute them diminished considerably. So running, jumping, getting up and sitting down are all impaired. Soon after when I started shooting again, many in the media and one in particular spoke disparagingly and with great sarcasm about how I was spent force and that my speed had reduced during action sequences. Yes of course it had. Try doing action with three surgeries mr media man and you would know how tough it is. But what is laughable is that they would put my speed in film as an impediment. Speed in film can be cranked up and down technically mister, you do not have to actually run at 9.3 secs for a 100 meters. Technology can do better than that. Coming from a reputed cinema critic showed the callous nature of said individual. He also taunted in his columns of my ‘belly flowing over my belt’. A punctilious remark bearing very little in ethic. Those bulges have been my hernia and there is no way that they can be diminished. Such personalized and sorry for the pun, below the belt remarks are beyond any code of conduct. I have but borne them all with grace and dignity. But now that I do have access to a medium when I can give my side of the story, media accuses me of getting at them in my blog. Mr mrs miss media, it is your own insecurity and fear of being counter written about, that drives you to keep writing utter rubbish about us as a family. One respondent on the blog wrote in to say that since I do not waste a moment to take a swipe at the media, is it any wonder then that they hate you and that despite its prominent music launch, Raavan is not getting any mention by the media. Sorry to state miss, Raavan will get its own merit and the amount of hype that it is creating without your kind help is sufficient and considerably more noticeable than you would have imagined. Eventually dear lady, the film will succeed or fail because of its quality, not because of any and certainly not your, media hype or the lack of it.

So back to medical. Much before the accident on Coolie and its peritonitis, and then the hernia and the diverticulitus, there was surgery to my neck. A lump was noticed on my left side of the neck, a growth that became large enough for it to be diagnosed. I was still in College then and went through two surgeries at the Safdarjang Hospital in Delhi, without any major fault. The biopsy said it was a benign tumor, but immersed deep into the nerves and best left alone. But the scar and its disposition was ugly and cosmetically it did not look very presentable. When I was working in Kolkata I had it revisited and a very famous heart surgeon said he would remove the lump. I went into surgery for the third time, the lump was indeed removed, but there was a problem. The doctor had accidentally cut the nerve that holds up my shoulder muscle. For long through physio they tried to revive it, but it never did. My left shoulder muscle is gone for good now. My left shoulder droops because there is no muscle to hold my trapezium. For long, and some even now believe, that that is a style that I have developed as an actor in the way I walk. No it is not a style. I do not have the muscle, so it droops. I cannot therefore raise my left arm, and I am a lefty, fully to the top. If I do it will drop because it has no strength of its own. When I eat, and I am a lefty, I need to rest my arm on the table for support otherwise I cannot lift it up to my mouth. My shoulder and neck pain that I have often talked of is not because of strain, its because of the remaining working muscle on my shoulder compensating for the loss of the muscle on the other side. Immediate problems apart from the physical is that my left arm has become longer than the right and that has effect on my clothing - the tailors have a rough time balancing my shirt sleeves, my coat sleeves …

So not having even 20% strength on my left hand, my more powerful hand, purely because of this surgical accident, is a huge handicap.

Soon after the Coolie accident and almost exactly a year later, in almost the same region around Bangalore, working with the same director, Manmohan Desai, I dropped down while climbing the stairs to my hotel room on location. I could not raise my arms. I could not walk more than a few steps. Could not brush my teeth. Could not drink water, or purse my lips. They rushed me back to Mumbai back to Breach Candy Hospital and I was diagnosed for Myasthenia Gravis, a muscle dysfunctional disorder. If your eye shuts it cannot open on its own and if it opens it cannot close on its own ; you have to use toothpicks to open them by the hand and then hold them up with the sticks. Treatment started with mestinon a tablet that would get me functional again and I would slip into it again as the tablet effect wore off. 8 -10 tablets a day kept me going, until one day they told me it was another ailment that went by the name of the Gia Berry ( spl ? ) Syndrome. Symptoms same. After a few years of medication I went into remission. Which basically means it is dormant at the moment, but could reappear anytime. The only respite during the time I was bedridden was an emotional Manmohan Desai who called on me and when I told him I may never walk again, said - ” I will make a film with you on a wheel chair.. you will fight from a chair… and act sitting down … **@*&$@# ..” and a few of his choicest abuses followed. He had a never say die spirit !

The very next year after the myasthenia a bomb exploded in my hand, yes the left again, at the time of Diwali. It was a spurious ‘anar’, the sparkling fountain, and as I was lighting it it exploded in my hand. The entire palm and the area below my wrist burnt up into almost a pulp. The left hand had melted into a fist shape, with nothing left of it. No fingers, no nails, no nothing. The process of treatment started, I was in Delhi at the time and in the middle of a film shoot in Chennai. The film was ‘Inquilab’. There was a deadline on when the film had to finish and I was desperate to get back. The doctors told me I would not heal before the time I was asking. I was stubborn. I asked them to do the best they could and leave me. Delicate procedures to start separating each finger from the melted mass was an intricate and very painful process. Because of my recent surgeries under general anesthesia, they were reluctant to give me another one to perform the intricate work on my hand. I told them to do it live. When the pain became too unbearable I would tell them to stop and continue the next day. After days of work on it and some basics being achieved, I sought leave and reported for work, hand in bandage. If you will see the film you will notice that I made a style of my left hand by wearing a handkerchief over it. All the work that followed was done with my hand covered with a handkerchief, almost a style statement .. ha ha ..

But the hand was taking too long to heal. The skin was raw and even a gust of breeze on it would make me wince in pain. The fingers and the palm gradually began to come back along with the nails, but they were still unusable because they had lost all strength and could not be moved. I had another film ready to start - Sharaabi. I was in a dilemma, what and how I would do it. So I made another style statement. Put the damaged hand into my pocket and did all the performance in the film with the left hand thus. If you shall see the film you may notice for most part the left hand remains in my trouser pocket. There was one song portion in - ‘mujhe naulakha dilwa de re..’ where I had to play the ‘ghungroo’ of the dancer Jayapradha on my bare hands. That shot in the sequence is for real. I pulled out my damaged hand and hit the ghungroos with it. In the sequence in the film the hand bleeds because of this act and the dancer comes by and stops me. That blood that you see in the film is real, because the wound was raw and it bled and it pained, but I went ahead and did it. When the camera begins to roll, there is a certain madness that overcomes us. That moment in the film was one such occasion. It took me a month to get my thumb to move across and touch my index finger ! And it took many months before all my fingers could get mobile and operational and many years before all the burn scars could dissolve. Till then my hand would be made up for film with make up. But one thing did not heal - the web between the thumb and the index finger. It had melted beyond repair. So now my left hand web does not open to capacity and my index finger has become crooked.

In around 2002 when the cirrhosis of the liver was discovered, a lump was discovered around my groin region. They cut it up again in a local anesthesia condition and suspected cancer and sent it for biopsy. It took ten days for the results to come. Those ten days were like waiting for the guillotine. I was in the middle of KBC at the time. How would I ever be able to complete it. Chemotherapy would disfigure my face. Make up alternatives were being prepared. And all this while I went up every evening in front of the Tv cameras smile on face, spring in my walk, happiness in my speech. I was giving one of my best performances .. ha . The results came negative and I jumped for joy. The joy lasted but short. I was getting severe spinal pains and I was under the impression that the KBC chair was the cause of it. So I started popping pain killers to get me through the episodes on Tv - 8 to 10 every day. This was destroying my liver condition, but what could I do it was impossible to even walk. On examination they threw the next medical bomb - they said I had contracted tuberculosis on the spinal chord .. or some such thing. Those two years of KBC were spent in this state. The TB they said was the ‘rich mans TB’, because they never exposed themselves to fresh air and the sun. A reference to this piece in my blog earlier on if you remember, had prompted that disgusting article on Aishwarya in Mumbai Mirror.

It took a year for the TB to cure. They have a course of medication and rest that works quite well and it did for me.

Some years back I started getting light flashes on the corner of my right eye. Checks showed that perhaps my retina was coming loose. On the sets of another Manmohan Desai film when Amrish Puri mistimed his kick with his metalled boot and hit my face, I dropped to the ground my nose in tatters and bleeding. But I was not too worried about the nose, I was cupping my eyes, just to make sure the impact had not displaced my retina and to prevent it from falling into the sand.

I am asthmatic so an asthaline pump is a regular in my pocket at all times. My leg injuries during a million action sequences have pulverized my veins and valves, so that now there is a circulation problem and during the shoots for Parvarish and Don an action dive on a hard surface damaged my L4 and L5 in the lower spine and a similar damage on the neck. They suggest surgery to cure it because the chord is bent, but I have had enough of operation theaters and desist.

Many after hearing these tales wonder how I am surviving. The American doctor in New York where I had gone for an opinion on my myasthenia wanted to see my medical report. On going through it he had inquired - ‘Is this guy still alive ? I cannot suggest anything more than what he has already been treated for, but I would just like to meet the man’. I did.

Many among you now after reading this report would be sick and disgusted by it - it does not make good copy. But if anyone were to ask me now how I was still alive, I would not hesitate to tell them its because of my extended family my EF, my FmXt !!

Love,

Amitabh Bachchan