Arvind Swami talked about his serious injury which kept him bedridden for years, and the mental strength he showed in overcoming it.
Arvind Swamy spoke about his aloof nature as he opened up about the health issues he faced in the years when he was not actively acting. He was out of the game for over a decade before making a comeback with Mani Ratnam’s film Kadal in 2013. In an interview, he spoke about being partially paralysed, which left him bedridden for years, and how he made a comeback by participating in a half-marathon. He said it was a mental challenge for him to overcome after being immobile for two years and struggling to walk 10 metres.
He told Gulf News, “I didn’t do any films for 13 years, and I wasn’t planning to make a comeback. It was just an opportunity given by Mani Ratnam sir, and when people think you can’t do it, you take it as a challenge… Not in a negative way, but a lot happened between my cameo in Alaipayuthey and Kadal. The most relevant thing was that I suffered a spinal injury and was bedridden for two years. I had partial paralysis in my leg…”
He said that when he was offered Cuddle, he took it as a challenge. He said, “It gave me a purpose to get back to good health. In that way, Cuddle is very special, more special than some of the other hits I’ve done, because it helped me get to a different place personally…” He further explained the difficulty he had to go through, “When I would walk from my bed to the shower, I would have a lot of pain, and I would have to sit down three or four times. You realize that you take a lot of things for granted, like you just jump out of bed and walk… but when you don’t have full control of your limbs, it gives you a completely different perspective.
He said he ran two half marathons a year after the cuddle. “I was bedridden for two years… For me, it wasn’t about training for the marathon. It was more mental. In the last few kilometres, my mind was like, ‘You can’t even get out of bed and walk 10 metres, and now you’re on the last three kilometres…'” he recalled. “I did it for my own satisfaction, so I could feel better about myself.”
Arvind Swamy recently appeared in the acclaimed film Meyazhagan, in which he stars alongside Karthi. Prior to this, he played a supporting role in Anubhav Sinha’s much-loved Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.
Arvind Swamy state about spinal injury that kept him bedridden for two years: ‘I was in immense pain, couldn’t even walk 10 metres’
