Arvind Swamy opens up about spinal injury that left him bedridden for two years: ‘Was in excruciating pain, unable to walk 10 metres’ | Tamil News
Arvind Swamy opened up about his detached nature, as he looked back on the health issues he faced in the years that he wasn’t actively acting. He was out of the game for over a decade, before making a comeback with Mani Ratnam’s Kadal in 2013. In an interview, he spoke about being partially paralysed that left him bed-ridden for years, and how he bounced back by participating in half-marathons. He said that it was more of a mental challenge for him to overcome, after being immobile for two years and struggling to walk even 10 metres.
He told Gulf News, “I didn’t do a film for 13 years, and I wasn’t planning on a making a comeback. It was just an opportunity provided by Mani Ratnam sir, and when people think you can’t do it, you take it up as a challenge… Not in a negative way, but between my cameo in Alaipayuthey and Kadal, a lot had happened. The most relevant thing was that I had a spinal injury and I was in bed for a couple of years. I had partial paralysis in my leg…”
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He said that when he was offered Kadal, he took it up as a challenge. He said, “It gave me some kind of purpose to get back to good health. That way, Kadal is very special, more special than some of the other hits that I’ve had, because it helped me personally get to another stage…” Further opening up about the difficulty that he went through, he said, “From the time I get from my bed to the shower, I would be in extreme, excruciating pain, and I would have to sit down three or four times. You realise that you take so many things for granted, like you jump out of bed… But when you don’t have full control of your limbs, it gives you a different perspective altogether.
He said that a year after Kadal, he ran two half-marathons. “I was in bed for two years… For me, it wasn’t about the training for the marathon. It was more mental. The last few kilometres, my mind was like, ‘You couldn’t get out of bed and walk 10 metres, and now you’re at the final three kilometres…” he recalled. “I did it for my own satisfaction, to feel better about myself.”
Arvind Swamy was recently seen in the acclaimed film Meiyazhagan, in which he stars alongside Karthi. Before that, he played a supporting role in Anubhav Sinha’s well-received Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.
