Urdu poet (93) beats Covid-19, invites doctors home for dinner

NOIDA: When Anand Mohan Zutshi ‘Gulzar’ Dehlvi was hospitalised with fever and cough, doctors were extremely worried. The Kashmiri Pandit poet, who had joined rallies for Independence as a young Inquilabi and got India’s first Urdu science magazine off the block, was a month shy of 94. And he had comorbidities: heart ailments, hypothyroidism and an enlarged prostate. But after a week of being critically ill with Covid-19, Dehlvi made his way home on Sunday after full recovery.
“He invited us home for dinner,” said Dr Abhishek Deshwal, in charge of the ICU at Sharda Hospital in Greater Noida. “He is a very positive person.”
In the last week of May, Dehlvi was admitted to Kailash Hospital. The poet, a post-graduate in arts from Hindu College, had fever and cough, symptoms of Covid-19. His test results came back positive and he was referred to Sharda Hospital on June 1. He was admitted to the ICU and put on invasive ventilator support because of his serious condition.
“When I examined the patient, he was critically ill, had altered mental status and his oxygen saturation (level of oxygen in the blood) was very low,” said Dr Ajit Kumar, joint registrar of the hospital, who attended to Dehlvi. “We treated him with high antibiotics, antiviral, multivitamins and put him on non-invasive ventilation (NIV) support. He was given a high-protein diet with ryles tube (a narrow bore tube that goes into the stomach through the nose).”
After three days of intensive treatment, Dehlvi started improving. “The oxygen level got better. We removed the NIV support mask on Friday and tested him again. His report came back negative the next day. He was discharged on Sunday after we saw how he was doing in room air, checking if the pneumonia was gone,” Dr Kumar said.
Dehlvi will now be in a seven-day quarantine at home. “He was very happy to be home, see my mother and me. He is still weak and resting,” said Anoop, his son, who moved into his parents’ Sector 26 home nine months ago from Mumbai to take care of them. The poet-academic-journalist, who has participated in hundreds of mushairas including Jashn-e-Rekhta in 2015, will celebrate his 94th birthday on July 7.