Randeep mourns bestie's death: 'Last thing he said was, 'I love you Hooda'

Randeep Hooda is devastated after losing his oldest friend, Mario Mingdou Chung, to cancer last Saturday. The actor cut short the shooting of 'Sarabjit' and jetted off to Australia on Monday. He will be back after Mario's funeral on Saturday.
Speaking to Mirror from Ballarat, Randeep was inconsolable, 'We met when we were 17 and did everything together for six years. He dropped me at the Melbourne airport when I was leaving Australia. I hadn't seen him in 15 years but we were in touch.'
He was supposed to be in Melbourne last week and an excited Mario couldn't wait to meet his bestie after all these years.He'd call around 10 times a day. 'We spoke on Thursday and the last thing he said was, 'I love you Hooda'. I replied, 'Me too, see you soo'. On Friday, he called me around three-four times, but I was busy with the shoot. I thought I'd connect once I was back at the hotel but it was too late. On Saturday night I couldn't stop shivering, I had a premonition that something bad had happened, it was bizarre!' recalls the actor, little realising that Mario was gone.
Randeep has been battling severe appendicitis pain as his work commitments wouldn't allow him to undergo an immediate surgery. On Sunday, he returned to Delhi from his polo club in Gurgaon, lay down, glad to rest and plan his surgery, when he got a mail informing him that Mario had passed away. 'I thought he was pulling my leg, it was a joke. He had battled cancer, beat addiction, overcome so many problems, he couldn't just up and go,' says his still shocked friend, who's wearing Mario's jacket and wandering through the town they once lived in and which has now lost its charm, talking, laughing, crying with Mario's mother, Litsa, who is like a second mom to him, assuring her that she still has one son around.
One of the reasons Randeep had given the nod to the trip Down Under was Mario. He had been undergoing chemotherapy without much improvement. The actor admits that he wanted to bring him to India for treatment but Mario had no passport. He had lost his birth certificate and stupidly changed his name, so it wasn't easy getting papers for him.
'I'd been struggling myself, but last year, things started looking up. I had planned to speak to some minister and some consulate officials when in Australia and try to get a passport issued for Mario so I could fly him down. If only I had gone there last week instead of staying back for the shoot that didn't happen, I would have at least met him one last time. He had reached out to me but I couldn't do anything,' Randeep sobs.
The 39-year-old actor goes on to admit that though Mario was half Chinese and half Cypriot, they were similar in many ways and there is a lot of his friend in some of his performances. 'He was a part of my youth, today he's taken away a piece of my heart and made me rethink my priorities. Sometimes you give up on personal relationships because you are married to your work. It's not worth it,' Randeep says brokenly.
Another friend, Antony, picked him up from the airport. Together, they were a trio and did a lot of stupid stuff that kids shouldn't do. Today, one of them is gone. 'Antony is expecting a child, if it's a boy he'll name him Mario,' Randeep signs off emotionally.