When ‘Issar Ka Punch-nama’ threatened Amitabh Bachchan’s life and ‘Duryodhana’ saved a stellar career

Amitabh Bachchan accident: Throughout his career spanning five decades, Amitabh Bachchan has played innumerable characters. But no one can forget his 1983 film Coolie, which released 40 years ago on 2nd December 1983. Apart from the film’s commercial success, the infamous disaster on the sets of the film and Big B almost on his death bed is also a contributing factor. Indeed, the accident sent the entire nation into panic and hysteria. It all happened during an action sequence when Amitabh came face to face with Puneet Issar who played the villain in the film Coolie. However, due to a misunderstanding between both the actors, Puneet landed a punch on Big B’s stomach which was so powerful that it caused serious injuries to the actor.

unfortunate incident

On July 26, 1982, Amitabh Bachchan nearly lost his life while filming a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar at Bangalore University. This injury made the film famous even before its release. During the fight sequence, Bachchan jumps awkwardly and misses the chance to land on the table. Due to this, there was an internal injury in the stomach. He was shifted to a hospital in Mumbai, where, according to media reports, he lapsed into a ‘haze and coma-like state’, and became ‘clinically dead within minutes’. Due to the damage and internal bleeding, the doctors at that time were not sure that he would survive, and the whole country started praying for the recovery of Hindi cinema’s biggest star.

after the accident

While he was in hospital there were reports of widespread grief and prayers were offered by many Indians at home and abroad. Rajiv Gandhi reportedly postponed his trip to the US to be with her. Bachchan received 60 bottles of blood from 200 donors, one of whom had hepatitis B virus. Bachchan recovered from the accident, miraculously recovered from serious injury, and resumed filming on January 7, 1983. But in 2000, he learned that the virus had caused liver cirrhosis, which had damaged about 75% of his liver. Later, Bachchan spoke about his experience promoting the Hepatitis B vaccine.

negative impact

Being his debut film, the incident made Puneet feel guilty, but Big B encouraged him to calm down and he started filming. His health deteriorated the next day, forcing him to be admitted to hospital, where he underwent surgery 72 hours after the tragedy. Amitabh Bachchan’s condition worsened with each hour and his weight decreased by 40 kg. Even though the incident shocked everyone and made Puneet a real-life monster in everyone’s eyes, Big B had no ill feelings towards him. In an interview, Puneet revealed that when he and his wife visited him in the hospital, Mr. Bachchan told them not to worry as it was not his fault. According to Punit, Bachchan wrapped his arm around her and started walking towards the gate. According to reports, Puneet Issar’s wife also donated blood for Amitabh.

Puneet was criticized by the media and Amitabh’s supporters for this haunted episode and thus, even though Coolie was a superhit, it did him no good. Additionally, it also affected his career as he was almost unemployed for 6-7 years after the incident and the public was quite hostile towards him. In the following years, he continued to act in B-grade films like Chandaal, Superman and Purana Mandir. Nevertheless, he managed to land the role of “Duryodhana” in BR Chopra’s Mahabharata television series. He was initially brought in to play Bhima, but was keen to play Duryodhana. He won the role after memorizing Duryodhana’s lines of dialogue. The rest is history now.