Actor-filmmaker Tinnu Anand recently opened up about the time when megastar Amitabh Bachchan was diagnosed with myasthenia gravisa rare autoimmune disease that causes muscular weakness, leaving the actor nearly fighting for his life. This revelation came shortly after Bachchan’s critical injury on the sets of Coolie in 1982, where a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar led to a severe intestinal injury, further complicating his health.
Anand, who had locked Bachchan for his ambitious film Shahenshahwas ready to begin shooting with the star in Ooty, but everything came to a halt after a shocking phone call. The filmmaker recalled that a day before filming, he received a call from Bachchan. He asked him to come to Mysore, where he was filming Coolie.
“I was told by the Manmohan Desai unit that he has gotten injured and was taken to Bengaluru for checkup. ‘He has asked you to come to Bengaluru,’ they told me, so I went there. This time, I was on tenterhooks: Is he going to be well for my schedule?”
Bachchan then revealed that during the shoot, he had choked while trying to sip water, as his brain failed to send the message to swallow— a symptom of his newly diagnosed condition. “I kept waiting at the hotel, where he arrived and said, ‘Please sit down, I have a bad news for you. I have been diagnosed with a nerve illness. During the shoot when I was taking a sip of the water, it got stuck in my throat, because the message to my brain didn’t go that I had to swallow it.’ He then said, ‘I nearly died suffocating on it,’” Anand shared in an interview with Radio Nasha.
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Following the diagnosis, Bachchan was advised to go to Mumbai for further tests and given strict orders for complete rest. Anand, heartbroken, recalled how he was told by doctors that the superstar may never be able to act again. This news led to the temporary shelving of Shahenshah. “I just collapsed listening to this! A few days later, Mr Khalid Mohammed wrote that he had a meeting with Amitabh, who told him, ‘Sorry, I have to give up on acting.’ So, Shehanshaah was dropped,” Anand said.
However, after some back and forth, Bachchan made a miraculous recovery and Shahenshah eventually went on floors, with Meenakshi Sheshadri as the female lead. With a story written by Jaya Bachchan, the film became one of the highest-grossing hits of 1988, marking Bachchan’s triumphant return to the silver screen.