MUMBAI - For 37 years, Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan has given his big army of fans a Sunday treat.

He steps out of his home in Mumbai to greet, and address, the hordes who come.

But over the weekend, the 76-year-old actor posted online: "Not doing the Sunday (greet and meet) today. In bed. Pain. Inform all, nothing to worry (about), but unable to come out."

The pain of his absence was more likely felt more by his followers, who know that their idol suffers from hepatitis B, reported the Hindustan Times.

He contracted the ailment during a blood transfusion after an on-set accident in the early 1980s. One of the donors carried the virus.

His fans fear the worst because, in 2000, Bachchan revealed that his liver was infected and that he had lost 75 per cent of the organ.

It is not known whether his Sunday absence was linked to that setback but other say his long years in show business have also left a toll.

"There is no part of the body that has not been broken, and there is no doctor whom I have not met," Bachchan once said in an interview.