Noida: 93-year-old Urdu poet Dehlavi beats Covid-19 in seven days

The winning instinct doesn’t seem to have ended for 93-year-old Urdu poet Pandit Anand Mohan Zutshi Gulzar Dehlavi, who beat Covid-19 in just seven days. The veteran poet was found positive for coronavirus on June 1 and was discharged from a private hospital in Greater Noida on June 7 after his report came negative.

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After being released from Sharda Hospital on Sunday evening, the nonagenarian poet said on Monday that it was the selfless services of the doctors that he has been able to see his family and friends again. Though feeling weak, the veteran poet narrated his war against the deadly virus in his typical romantic style over phone from his residence in Sector 26: “Wo kehte hain ye ghatak teer hai jaan le ke nikalega, main kahta hoon ye meri jaan hai mushkil se nikalegi (They say that the arrow of deadly disease will kill me, I say it’s my life which will not end so easily).”

Expressing his gratitude for the round-the-clock care by the doctors of the hospital, Dehlavi said that they have given him a new lease of life. “Once I get completely fit, I’ll certainly invite every staff of the hospital for a dinner,” he said.

Dehlavi’s son Anoop Zutshi said that his father is keeping well now. “He is feeling very weak and has some other old-age ailments also. But he is always a fighter as he had also undergone his open heart and brain surgeries a few years ago,” Anoop said, adding that once his father gets fine, he will take him to Pune. Anoop is based at Pune.

The spokesperson of Sharda Hospital said that Dehlavi was on 10-litre oxygen at the time of being admitted to the hospital. “Since his position was very critical that time, as per the instructions given by our director, a special team headed by Dr Abhishek Deswal looked after him. Four doctors, in a shift of six hours, were also deputed to monitor his condition all the time in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the isolation ward,” he said.

Dr Ashutosh Niranjan, medical superintendent of Sharda Hospital, said that symptomatic treatment of Dehlavi was immediately started. “For three days after the admission, he was kept on life support system and only fluid diets were given to him. But after that, he was shifted to general ward. He was tested negative on Saturday. And, since he was asymptomatic, we discharged him on Sunday. Our staff saw him off with flowers,” said Niranjan.