On a call with doctor, son sings to dying mother in hospital

KOLKATA: Tweets by a Kolkata doctor narrating a man’s final farewell to his Covid-affected mother — who was on her death bed in a Kolkata hospital — has touched a chord and triggered a tsunami of emotional posts on Twitter from hundreds who have lost a loved one but never had the opportunity to bid adieu.
On Wednesday, critical care doctor Dipshikha Ghosh of Apollo Gleneagles made a video call — like she had done many times during the yearlong pandemic to connect critically-ill patients with their family members on request. It helped them get closure. The calls were discreet and though some of them were very emotional, Ghosh had always been composed while handling them. But she wasn’t quite prepared for what happened in the ICU on Wednesday afternoon.
She connected the 47-yearold Covid patient with her 25-year-old son. After inquiring about how she was, the son began to sing a popular Kishore Kumar number from the 1973 hit film ‘Aa Gale Lag Jaa’.
The poignant moment is best described in the tweets she sent out a few minutes later. “Today, towards the end of my shift, I video called the relatives of a patient who is not going to make it. We usually do that in my hospital if it’s something they want. This patient’s son asked for a few minutes of my time,” she wrote.
“He then sang a song for his dying mother. He sang ‘Tera Mujhse Hai Pehle Ka Naata Koi’. I just stood there holding the phone, looking at him looking at his mother and singing. The nurses came over and stood in silence. He broke down in the middle but finished the verse. He asked her vitals, thanked me and hung up,” Ghosh posted. Till last count on Thursday, the post had been retweeted over 10,000 times, drawn nearly 40,000 likes and over 1,500 comments.