Comedian Raju Srivastava's condition stable, continues to be on ventilator

Mumbai, Sep 07: According to latest update, comedian Raju Srivastava, who has been in the hospital for a month now, has shown slight improvement and is now able to move his hands and feet after gaining consciousness.

Raju Srivatsava's wife Shikha confirmed that the comedian is stable, but he remains to be on a ventilator and urged all to pray for him.

"All I can say is that his condition is stable and he is still on a ventilator. The medical team is doing their best and we all want your prayers so that he recovers and is back with us," she told Bombay Times.

For the unversed, Raju Srivastava suffered a heart attack on August 9 following which he was rushed to the AIIMS hospital in Delhi.

The comedian had a heart attack while exercising at a hotel's gym here.

He gained initial stardom as an Amitabh Bachchan look-alike and also imitated him very well. He landed in Mumbai (then Bombay), and after a few years did a blink-and-you-miss role in the superhit Rajshri movie Maine Pyar Kiya. He did many other small roles in a varied number of movies, mostly an inconspicuous comic role.

Raju Srivastav, a talented artiste, with a flair for comedy, had done stage shows with Kalyanji Anandji, Bappi Lahiri, and Nitin Mukesh in India and abroad. He was also noticed by Johnny Lever when he used to do stage shows before joining the film industry. Raju's mimicry was liked and applauded by the masses and he was an important person in Johnny Lever's troupe.

His big break, however, was the comedy talent show The Great Indian Laughter Challenge. Although he didn't win the competition and only received a 1st runner-up title, he followed that stint with some memorable stage performances in the spin-off, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge - Champions, where he was unofficially given the coveted title "The King of Comedy".

After that, he was noticed by many filmmakers and got regular assignments in movies with bigger roles.