Amitabh Bachchan pays tribute to Raju Srivastava, opens up about sharing voice notes for his treatment

Amitabh Bachchan posted a heartfelt condolence on Raju Srivastava's passing. The late comedian was a huge fan of the legendary superstar.

Comedian Raju Srivastava passed away on September 21. He was admitted to AIIMS Hospital in Delhi for over a month. The comedian suffered a heart attack while working out at the gym on August 10, post which, his trainer brought him to the hospital. Condolences have been pouring in from all quarters on social media. After Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar paid tribute to the actor, Amitabh Bachchan fondly remembered Raju Srivastava. For the unaware, the comedian was a huge fan of the legendary superstar and rose to fame by mimicking him.

Raju Srivastava was a huge fan of Amitabh Bachchan. In fact, he would often share how the superstar’s acting prowess and signature look had been inspiring him since his school days. On this rather sad day, Amitabh Bachchan took to his blog and posted a condolence message for the late comedian.

"Another colleague, friend and creative artist leaves us. A sudden ailment and gone before time, before his creativity time completion. His sense of timing and the colloquial humour of his birth shall remain with us. It was unique, open, frank and filled with humour. He smiles from the heavens now and will be the reason for mirth with God," Big B wrote in his blog.

In the post, Amitabh Bachchan shared that he had sent a voice note to Raju Srivastava's family to help them with the stand-up artiste's treatment. "Each day in the morning with him in spirit and information from nearby ones, they got advised to send a voice to awaken his condition. I did, they played it for him in his state in his ears. On one instance he did open his eye a bit and then went away," the veteran star said.

When Amitabh Bachchan's Deewar released in 1975, Raju Srivastava was in school. He was so impressed with him that he bought posters of him and stuck them on the walls of his house. Speaking to Zoom Digital, Raju had once said, "I became his fan to that extent that I used to get his posters and put them at my house. I doted his hairstyle and started imitating him. People used to address me as Big B. People used to call me at their homes for entertaining them, during social functions, religious occasions."

But Raju had to work hard to break away from Amitabh Bachchan's lookalike tag. He had said, "I stopped his [Big B] mimicry and I started mimicking Lalu Prasad Yadav, Dharmendra, Shashi Kapoor, Dilip Kumar to name a few. The lookalike stamp got cleared."

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