KABHI ISS HOSPITAL KABHI USS HOSPITAL, AMITABH NE ITNE SAARE HOSPITAL KA   TRIP KIYA

The body has absolutely no respect for anyone , whether it is Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone , Dara Singh or whether it is strong personalities like the different men in the Kapoor family, Dev Anand, Dharmendra or any of the Khans , Kumars and Devgns, and certainly not for a man who is worshipped by millions like Amitabh Bachchan- Ali Peter John 

If you ask me and if I know anything about Amitabh Bachchan, I know that the busiest ever actor has also spent some of the best days of his life in different hospitals.

This thought comes to mind as I read different newspapers and reluctantly watch some reliable channels screening about Amitabh Bachchan and his latest "rendezvous" with the Nanavati Hospital , just Ten minutes away from his bungalow , "Jalsa".

According to the family sources and hospital authorities, Amitabh was admitted for a regular check up .

But there are pessimists who ask questions about why he should have been kept in hospital for a regular checkup for four long days , a time we cannot afford to lose because of his umpteen commitments as an actor , as an anchor and as a man involved with any number of social welfare activities.

Whatever it may be , the fact is that this was not the first time he was admitted to any hospital.

There were many other times when his being admitted created an alarming situation all over...

The first time he was in hospital when he was a young man who had still to stake his claim for stardom, it was when he was to have regular and unbearable attacks of asthma, but he immersed a winner every time he was in hospital or under any treatment.

He had a brief skirmish with a local hospital , I think it was the same Nanavati Hospital when his hand was badly burnt while playing with fire works with his children , Shweta and Abhishek. 

Hospitals didn't trouble him for a long time after that , but when they did , they did it with some kind of unexplainable vengeance.

He had to be admitted to the St. Philomena Hospital in Bangalore soon after he was felled by that "famous" knock by Duryodhan , sorry , Punit Issar.

The hospital couldn't take the responsibility of the very critical case of a famous man who inners were all ruptured and torn.

The hospital asked his near and dear ones to rush him to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, where he fought a two-month long war with death ( from September 24, 1982 onwards),  the day on which he was almost in a coma when a decision was taken to ask one of the important airlines to take out all the seats in the aircraft ,so that he could be flown in a comfortable position in which doctors , nurses and some very close friends attending on him.

He spent two months exactly in the hospital and there were any number of times when he was declared dead by gossip and rumour specialists.

He was finally declared clinically dead when his wife , Jaya walked bare feet  from the hospital to the Siddhivinayak temple and walked back to see one of his toes showing signs of life and screamed and called back all the doctors who put up one big battle to save him and it was the "madness" of the head of the team of doctors, Dr. Farokh Udwadia who asked his team to pump his body with Cortisone injections and the other doctors believed that Dr. Udwadia had gone mad, but it was the good doctor's decision that is sad to have brought back Amitabh to life and once he was discharged and came home , his started work and then there was no stopping him... 

Till 2005, when he had an attack on the same organs which had been damaged in the killer accident and he had to be rushed to the Lilavati Hospital in Bandra.

His ailment this time was kept a big secret, but it was finally revealed that his stomach had been badly damaged and several parts of it were ruptured and even had blood and puss flowing all over.

The media was  kept away from this "accident" , but they still kept hovering around the hospital, waiting like vultures to pick up some news about his health and who would have been very happy if they had finally got him, I mean they got the news which they couldn't get after waiting outside the Breach Candy Hospital for two months, the best news for them would , as I know them , be the news that he had gone, that he was no more as they usually put it in all news about someone's passing away, as they like to put it and have been doing during the last hundred years of journalism.

But Amitabh refused to give them that opportunity and he and his fans had the last laugh when he walked out of the hospital hail and hearty. 

This stay of his in hospital strikes a personal chord in me. My young daughter, Swati Ali ,  who was a reporter with the "Indian Express" and was the head of the health department of the paper.

Did something which no one who knows about it can still believe. The media was kept far away from Amitabh's room in one of the top floors of the hospital.

Swati wanted to get a first hand report somehow and she being a very good climber and trekker tool the amazing risk of climbing the pipes to his room and get the news she literally deserved for the risk of her life she had taken.

I take this opportunity to salute my daughter who has done many other such daring feats not only in journalism but also in the world of films in America where she made a film based on the lives of immigrants in America, " We the people" which was lapped up in its website version and which has led her to be one of the most wanted Indian directors of short films and web series , which she is now doing in India , where she is involved in the making of three website films ...

Ailments, accidents and stays in hospitals have not been a new thing for the Bacchans.

Amitabh's parents , Dr Harivanshrai Bachchan and wife Mrs. Teji Bacchan had to battle it out in a different hospitals towards the end of their lives and if there was one man who stood by them till the end of their time , it was their son Amitabh Bachchan who sometimes took supersonic jets to reach their bedsides when they were in a crisis situation.

Today , Abhishek Bachchan is doing the same for his father , as could be seen during the hospitalisation of his father at the Lilavati Hospital ( He was too young to know about what was happening to his father at the Breach Candy Hospital) and now when his father had to be taken to Nanavati Hospital where he was by the side of his father all the four days...

Amitabh as usual has once again expressed his deep sense of gratitude to all those who have prayed for him during his stay at the Nanavati Hospital...

And a random talk with some of his crazy fans shows that they are very concerned and want him to take things easy and not work the way he is, shooting for KBC for twelve hours or more , working on other films and ad films and attending events which he feels are good enough and can do good to some worthy causes.

And on this day I remember how Amitabh had told me that he would love to live till he was fit to work, and he can do it only if he takes care of his ailment- ridden body , because like I said the body has absolutely no respect for the greatest and even the smallest of the human beings.

Man may try all that he can with money or medical science or technology, but the body will ultimately have its way ...