‘Hindi and Marathi film industry was there that day for us,’ said Shreyas Talpade’s wife Deepti

New Delhi: 

Iqbal star Shreyas Talpade, who recently suffered a near-fatal heart attack, opened up about how the Hindi and Marathi film industry supported him and his family during the critical time. On ABP’s Majha Katta, the actor and his wife recalled the time his Housefull 2 co-star Akshay Kumar offered to shift the actor to another hospital post his cardiac arrest. Shreyas’ wife Deepti Talpade said, ‘Akshay Kumar kept calling me and asked, ‘Deepti should we shift him? You tell, we will shift him to a different hospital.’ He again called me in the morning and said, ‘let me please see him for two minutes. I just want to see him.’ I said, ‘you can come whenever you want.’ Hindi and Marathi film industry was there that day for us.”

Last year in December, actor Shreyas Talpade suffered a heart attack. Earlier in a chat with ETimes, the actor described his recovery as a “second chance at life”. Admitting that his revival was “nothing short of a miracle”, Shreyas shared that he did not see this health setback coming. “I was never hospitalised before in my life, not even for a fracture so I didn’t see this coming. Don’t take your health for granted. Jaan hai toh Jahaan hai. An experience like this changes your perspective towards life. I started doing theatre at 16, became a professional actor at 20. For the past 28 years, I have just been focussing on my career. We take our families for granted. We think we have time. As a nation, we are not high on preventive care,’ he was quoted as saying.

Speaking about what happened on the fateful day, Shreyas Talpade explained, ‘We were shooting in Mumbai at the SRPF grounds close to Jogeshwari for Ahmed Khan’s Welcome To The Jungle. We were doing army training sequences like swinging on a rope, falling into the water and everything was going smoothly…Suddenly, after the last shot, I felt breathless, and my left hand started paining. I could barely walk to my vanity van and change my clothes. I thought it was a muscle pull since we were shooting action sequences. You don’t think of the worst-case scenario, right? I had never experienced this kind of fatigue.”

Sharing further, the Iqbal actor said, “As soon as I got into the car, I felt I should head straight to the hospital, but thought I should go home first. My wife, Deepti, saw me in that state and within 10 minutes, we were on our way to the hospital [Andheri’s Bellevue]. We were almost there and could see the hospital gate, but the entry was barricaded, and we had to take a U-turn. The very next moment my face went numb, and I passed out. That was a cardiac arrest. My heart had stopped beating for those few minutes. Deepti couldn’t get out of the car from her side of the door as we were stuck in traffic, so she climbed over me and got to the other side to call for help. A few people came to our rescue and rushed me inside. The doctors did CPR, electrical shock, that’s how they revived me.’

Shreyas Talpade played the leading role in Nagesh Kukunoor’s 2005 film Iqbal. He is known for his work in hit films such as Om Shanti Om, Dor, Golmaal 3, Kaun Pravin Tambe? and Housefull 2 among others.