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ALL IS NOT WELL
THE MONTH-LONG shooting schedule of Manmohan Desai's
Mard was coming to a close on the sets in Mysore. Under
the supervision of dance director Kamal, a song-and-dance
sequence was being picturized. After a spell of shooting,
leading actor Amitabh Bachchan asked for a glass of
water. To his amazement and dismay, he was unable to
swallow it, the water choking in his throat.
He tried to stand, but found his feet shaky and felt
a severe pain in his thighs. Virtually collapsing on
the sets, he created panic all around. It was two years,
almost to the day, since he had suffered the abdominal
Injury which, in June '82, had nearly ended his life.
Ironically, that had also been during the course of
a Manmohan Desai shooting schedule (on the sets of Coolie),
a fact that apparently added to Desai's distress in
Mysore. Two doctors were rushed in from Madras, but
there was no visible improvement in the 40-year-old
actor's condition. He was then flown down for what his
family, at that stage, called a "routine check-up"
at Bombay's Breach Candy Hospital. "He became all
right," says Jaya Bachchan, "and after that
he even visited his parents in Delhi which is the reason
they have not come to Bombay." Returning from Delhi,
Bachchan celebrated a quiet wedding 'anniversary at
home on 3 June. But on 5 June, the actor returned to
the hospital worse off than at the time of his first
visit 'the previous week. Reportedly, he had to be helped
from the car to the hospital by his secretary and family
members.
While the doctors maintained a more or less taciturn
silence, saying only that the actor was "absolutely
normal" and I would be returning home in a day
or two, the rumour grind mills began to churn overtime
and a section of the local press allowed its imagination
to run riot.
"Amitabh Critical?" headlined one eveninger,
and went on to suggest that he 'was, quoting "unconfirmed
sources" as saying that he (Amitabh) had suffered
a ,paralytic stroke which had rendered him immobile.
The film industry, added the scrap line, was in a panic.
Another evening paper said that Bachchan's admission
into hospital followed a recent nervous breakdown.
Rare Complication: When the diagnosis
was finally announced, it turned out that the actor
was suffering from a rare muscular illness called Myasthenia
Gravis that strikes one person in a lakh.
The disease involves a progressive weakness of the body
muscles, especially of the face, eyes, jaws and shoulders;
in the later stages, the trunk and limb muscles are
also affected.
(Mya = muscle; asthenia = weakness; gravis = major-having
its root in grave). There is a steady decline in the
production of acetylcholine, chemical which is involved
in the transmission of messages from the brain to nerve
terminals. The effect is crippling.
After a few hours of waking, the patient may find himself
unable to keep his eyelids open. If he yawns, he may
find himself unable to close his mouth.
Said Dr Farookh Udwadia who is attending to Bachchan:
"It mayor may not have a relationship with his
earlier Illness. We have yet to draw our conclusions."
However, he added: "There is no cause to worry."
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