Puneet Issar, whose accidental punch left Amitabh Bachchan ‘clinically dead’, says he lost all his films after the incident: ‘People were scared’

However, Puneet, who was married and had a family to take care of, didn’t lose hope. He said, “That was maybe my churning period. It made me a better actor and human being.” The phase also helped him introspect and differentiate between the real and fake friends in his life.

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He added, “Irrespective of the phase, people learn a lot. I learnt to be patient and humble. One second changed my life from a 21-year-old who was signed as the main villain against Amitabh Bachchan, had 10 films in his kitty to someone who suddenly lost all his films. People suddenly forgot that I was a Gold Medalist from actor’s studio and a trained artist. I was a professor of language and diction. All this vanished, I suddenly became a ‘fighter’. From then, I only received such roles, and to make ends meet I had to take that up. I was married after all.”

Puneet, who is now best known for his portrayal of Duryodhana in BR Chopra’s television drama Mahabharat said the Coolie experience made him a stronger human. “Bad times will come, but I couldn’t afford to lose my focus”, said the actor.

Previously, talking about his Coolie incident, Amitabh Bachchan had once penned in one of his blogs: “I went into almost a haze and a coma-like situation. Within five days of coming into Breach Candy, I had another surgery and didn’t come out of that one for a very, very long time and I was clinically dead for a couple of minutes. Then Dr Wadia, who looked after me and is an absolute life-saver, just said ‘I’m going to take a last chance’ and he started pumping cortisone/adrenaline injections into me one after another almost, 40 ampules of it, with the hope that something would happen and then I got revived.”