Dr Khanna suggested that we must admit him in a hospital. We wheeled him into Citicare (Andheri East). An endoscopy revealed that he had developed lesions on his liver. Dr Khanna said it was curable and we had reached him in time. We admitted him on March 29, the very next day he had fluid accumulation. We eliminated a lot of unwanted fluid from his body but the diarrhea still hadn't stopped.
Sometime later, he was given injections of Albumin. Almost immediately, he started shivering. The albumin was stopped. On March 31, he was feeling much better. The blood cell count was far better than before and the jaundice had also lessened. We were told he will be discharged in the next 2 days. But just a little later, he was again administered albumin and he started shivering again. I called Dr Sanjeev Khanna and we stopped the Albumin. A few minutes later, he said he was feeling immense nausea. He went to the bathroom and tried to vomit. About 5 minutes later when I knocked the bathroom door, there was no answer. I pushed my leg inside but could not open the door even though he hadn't locked it from inside. Reason-he was standing on the other side grappling to hold the latch and handle so that he shouldn't fall. He was losing consciousness. I somehow forced my way in and saw that he had passed stool near the basin.
I brought him out. There was no ward boy around to help and I lost my cool. I shuddered to think that what if the entire family had gone home that day. I called up Dr Sanjeev Khanna. His blood pressure was now reading 60/40. A few minutes later, his blood pressure decreased so much that it could not be recorded.
He was shifted to the ICU. A few minutes later, his blood pressure was normal. I decided to go home for few hours. Avantika had come to the hospital by then. I tried to catch a few winks. I was woken up at 7.30 am, my phone was ringing. I was told that his blood pressure was again not being recorded. Dr Khanna had also reached then and this is when he suggested him that can shift him to Global Hospital, saying that we should admit him in a special ICU called Liver ICU.
A large team of specialist saw him and said he needed dialysis and ventilator both. They had to put him on some pills which put him to sleep, since he was very restless. The blood pressure that time was reading 60/40. Fluctuations set in and I saw the readings 63/36, 53/33. He was slipping.
The next morning, the doctors told me that he was critical. They made me sign some consent paper, which required me to give them permission to go in for CT if needed.
Alok Nath (L), Neena Gupta (M), Satish Kaushik (R)
I decided to go to a nearby restaurant and have some snacks and coffee. Hardly had the waiter served, I was asked to rush up. I reached there and the doctors said that I should call all the family members. They declared that all support systems were not helping and his organs were not responding at all. They were frank and said it could be 5 minutes, maybe 5 hours.
I called all the family members. Thankfully, they all reached in time. He was breathing until then. We all paid our last respects. The end came at about 1.30 pm. The team of medicos tried to revive him- but in vain.
To sum it up, none of his friends from the industry- Nadira Babbar, Neena Gupta. Alok Nath, Satish Kaushik, Raja Bundela- neither turned up nor called. To tell you the truth, nobody from Bollywood has bothered. We all know how it is, out here. Haven't quite a few actors died in penury? Main bhi isi line se hoon. What Navtej never understood, I had understood in one year. On the contrary, Avantika's colleagues and friends from the TV industry- Krishna Banerjee, Sandeep Sikcand and many others turned up."
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