January 22, 2009
A serious chest injury for Suneil Shetty, a wracking fever cold-cough and a septic leg wound for Katrina Kaif...all this and much more happened while shooting prolonged underwater sequences for Priyadarshan's De Dana Dan last month.
The most hard hit is Suneil Shetty. Our first action hero to get healthily muscular, he has never gone without the gym in the past ten years...
Except now. A serious chest injury last month on the sets of Priyadarshan's comedy De Dana Dan had the Blast Action Hero laid up for the past six weeks...without exercise. This has automatically generated unwanted avoid-dupois in Suneil.
"But there's nothing I can do about it," shrugs Suneil Shetty helplessly as he finally gets permission to move out of bed, but not to exercise. "For six weeks, I've been a lying around at home doing practically nothing except watching television reading books and scripts and bonding with my kids. But for how long? They've a life of their own. The worst blow was the fact that I couldn't exercise, something unthinkable for me. But then you know how it is. Destiny has all kinds of plans for you when you are busy looking elsewhere."
So what happened? "All of us Akshay Kumar, Katrina, Sameera and I were shooting underwater for De Dana Dan. In water your body just floats. I don't know what hit me down there. But I felt something hit my chest. When I came out of the water I couldn't move my left arm. I couldn't breathe. For the next six weeks I was prescribed complete bed rest. Any movement would and did cause a spasm of pain in my chest. And since I'm in the habit of sleeping on my side, I'd often go to sleep on the hurt hand and get up numb and scared," says Suneil Shetty, shuddering at the recollection of the ordeal .
"I haven't become fat or flabby. But I've put on weight. That really worries me because I've never put on an ounce before. I'm still not allowed to work out."
It will take Suneil time to recover fully. But he gives the makers of De Dana Dan a clean chit. "The water was changed every day and disinfected properly. All safety precautions were taken. And yes the entire cast was ensured. Such things happen. Ironically I've done all kinds of stunts for my films without a single injury so far. And I got injured when we weren't really doing any stunts."
One of Suneil's first outings after the mishap would be to Delhi for the opening of Milind Soman and Rahul Dev's gym.
"Like me they believe in staying fit. In 19 years in the industry I never had to cancel a single shoot....until now."
