Puneet Issar prays for Big B

Mumbai: As the nation prays for superstar Amitabh Bachchan?s speedy recovery, there is one man who is praying harder than everybody else.

Actor turned director Puneet Issar, who accidentally hit Bachchan in the abdomen during a fight sequence in 1982 during the filming of Coolie is has for years tried to get the memories of that fateful incident out of his mind.

On Monday, the past came back to haunt Issar when Amitabh Bachchan was admitted to the hospital following complaints of abdomen pain.

Doctors confirmed that the abdominal pain this time around was on the same side where he was hit 23 years.

The superstar was operated upon in Mumbai?s Lilavati hospital where surgeons removed the tissues, which were the remnants of the injury he had sustained during the shooting of Coolie.

And though the operation on Thursday was declared successful, for Puneet Issar it is difficult to forget the six-months when Bachchan was in the hospital after the accident.

"I am a firm believer in destiny and whatever has to happen will happen. But the accident was not my fault, it was an accident. I just take whatever everyone says with a pinch of salt," says Issar.

For Issar it is tough to forget the public outrage and backlash he suffered after the incident, the memories of which haunt him every time he sees a news report on Bachchan's surgery in Lilavati hospital on television.

Issar also remembers Bachchan's grandoise gesture in the Breach Candy hospital foyer following his recovery.

"When the accident happened, everything was so blown out of proportion. People started saying that I had hit Amitabh Bachchan deliberately. But he knew what was going on in my mind. He called me to the hospital and said that he knew it was an accident," says he.

"I saw him being taken to the hospital on television this time but I feel that his present condition has got nothing to do with what happened 23 years ago," says Issar.

Issar may not have visited Bachchan in hospital yet, but he insists he's praying more than everybody else for the superstar's recovery.