AKSHAY GIVES STUNTMEN A GREAT GIFT

This vital segment of Bollywood will now get an insurance scheme, something it never had before

[He] has turned the impossible into possible. We don’t know what magic wand Akshayji has used. We can’t thank him enough EJAZ GULAB, STUNTMAN

Akshay Kumar has always maintained that “he is a stuntman first and then an actor”. Who can dispute that, since he does most of his own hair-raising stunts? Now, as a mark of a respect to the professionals who add so much to our moviewatching experience, Akshay has launched a special insurance initiative for them. “It’s going to be a first-of-itskind stuntmen (and stuntwomen) insurance system in India. The scheme is the brainchild of Akshay and Dr Ramakanta Panda (who operated on ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2009),” says an insider. Akshay is an action man off-screen, too. In the late ’80s, he got a black belt in Taekwondo before learning martial arts in Bangkok, where he also trained in Muay Thai. Upon his return to Mumbai, he taught martial arts before becoming a Bollywood star. Even his movie journey started as an action hero with Saugandh (1991) and the Khiladi series. The source says, “Akshay strongly believes that stuntmen (and women) work very hard and take lifethreatening risks, and it’s high time they got insured.”

Until now, there was no such insurance scheme for stuntmen in any film industry, including Tamil, Telugu and Kannada cinema.

A year ago, Akshay wrote an open letter to stuntmen. In it, he said: “My children still have their father in one piece because there is always someone prepared to take the fall that I may not be able to.”

The new insurance scheme was in planning stage for fourfive months. It’ll cover 380 stuntmen (and women) of Bollywood aged 18-55 years.

Ejaz Gulab, general secretary of the Movie Stunt Artist Association, thanked the star for this.