Anurag Basu opens up about his long fight against blood cancer

Filmmaker Anurag Basu was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2004. When his wife was seven months pregnant with their daughter, the doctors told him he had about two weeks to live.

18 years down the line, the artist is still alive but the long battle with the illness has changed his outlook on life. He said people kept coming to donate blood for him because his internal organs kept bleeding.

Talking to Samdish on the latest episode of Unfiltered, Basu said after seeing how usually calm people like Mahesh Bhatt and Anupam Kher reacted to his state, he knew something was wrong. His illness was discovered by doctors after a series of tests were done to diagnose the reason behind the big blisters in the mouth.

His wife Tani found out about his critical condition from news channels.

"My condition started deteriorating rapidly as no medicine was helping. My face was bloated. I was unable to catch my breath. That feeling of suffocation made me get a reality check of my bad condition," said the Barfi director.

He added that being part of the film industry felt like a blessing because Sunit Dutt got him a bed in Tata Memorial Hospital. The director recalls not knowing who all donated blood and platelets for me. "I don't know whose blood is running in my veins today".

Basu says he finished shooting the movie 'Gangster' while undergoing chemotherapy. He also shot a TV show wearing a mask because he needed money to keep the treatment going. The filmmaker says the courage came from his family.