Filmmaker Raj Kapoor was known for his ‘joie de vivre’, which he refused to contain even while visiting someone who’d recently emerged from near-death experience. He had such a passion for life that he always made sure that those around him were getting the best food and drink, no matter what the circumstances. This side of Raj Kapoor’s personality was evident even when he visited Amitabh Bachchan in the hospital after the actor had an accident on the sets of Coolie.
Amitabh was critically injured on the set of Manmohan Desai’s film Coolie while performing a stunt. The film also starred Raj’s son, Rishi Kapoor, who also happened to be on the set at the time when Bachchan got injured. After the accident, Bachchan was flown to Mumbai from Bangalore in an air ambulance, as the entire nation united in prayer for him. When he was recovering from his injury, and was still in the ICU at Breach Candy Hospital, Raj paid him a visit. Amitabh recalled this incident in Ritu Nanda’s book, Raj Kapoor – The One and Only Showman.
He shared that when Raj visited him, he walked in with a bottle of champagne as he wanted to give him something to look forward to. “In 1982, when I had my accident on the sets of Coolie and lay struggling for my life at Breach Candy Hospital, he walked into the ICU one morning, swinging a bottle of champagne in his hand, sat down beside me and said, ‘Hurry up and get out, we need to smash this bottle on your ship of life and launch a fresh new beginning. The greatest showman of the film industry, Raj-ji was one who had joie de vivre in every pore of his being. He led and his exuberance followed him,” he shared.
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In an interview given to India Today in 1980, Bachchan had said that he used to be a chain-smoker, meat-eater, and drinker in the past, and shared why he gave it all up. “I don’t smoke, drink or eat meat. It isn’t anything religious but simply a matter of taste. In our family, my father is a vegetarian and my mother is not. Similarly, Jaya eats meat and I don’t. I used to eat meat – in fact, I used to drink and smoke as well but now I have given them up. In Calcutta I smoked 200 cigarettes a day – yes, that’s right, 200, but then I gave it up after coming to Bombay. I used to drink too – anything, we’d drink anything we could get our hands on but a few years ago I decided I didn’t really need it. My habits don’t cause me any problems except when I’m shooting abroad. Then, it becomes difficult to get vegetarian food,” he had said.
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