Big B's other birthday: Why close friends wish him on Augt 2...

When Puneet Issar punched Bachchan due to an error in judgement, bang on his solar plexus during the shooting of the Manmohan Desai box office juggernaut "Coolie" in 1982 at the Karnataka University Campus in Bangalore, little did one know that the accident would have lasting consequences.

Bachchan, who wanted to do that shot himself rather than use a duplicate, had to fall on a table and then roll on to the ground. But as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table hit his abdomen leading to a rupture in his spleen causing a lot of blood loss.

Bachchan was drafted into a yellow coloured Volkswagen and taken to the local hospital there. He was in excruciating pain and the doctors who examined him suggested that he should be shifted to Mumbai. So Bachchan was brought to the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.

A splenectomy took place and the actor remained critically ill for a while. Doctors attending to him were on 24-hour call.

It can be recalled that during that illness Bachchan, in fact, clinically died for 11 minutes.

But by that time, one oversmart fan and producer of his, Manoj Desai who later produced Khuda Gawah with Big B and was earlier the president of his fan club went and told some members of the media that Bachchan had passed away. Thankfully there was no major competition in the media and no electronic media to break the wrong news.

In a last ditch attempt to revive him, the doctors plunged an adrenaline injection into his heart and hoped that he would return... Suddenly Jaya Bachchan saw Amitabh's toe move and she exclaimed, "Look he is alive".

It took that one injection to get him back. Amitabh was alive again.

"Amitabh suggested that I incorporate the scene in Major Saab and I did and Ajay Devgan said the same lines that Jaya had said in real life," says Tinnu Anand.

But then today, 30 years hence, Ketan Desai, Manmohan Desai's son, Manoj Desai and a few others, still call Bachchan to wish him a Happy Birthday.

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