Lata Mangeshkar at Deenanath hospital with Bal Thackeray. (File) Over two decades ago, in November 2001, the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital was set up in Pune in memory of legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar‘s father. Lata was keenly involved in the work herself and the vision of the family was to provide ethical medical services of the highest quality to patients at an affordable cost without discrimination.
“She was a live wire and had first-hand knowledge about the functioning of the hospital,” said Dr Dhananjay Kelkar, the hospital’s Medical Director, about the acclaimed singer who passed away on Sunday at 92.
Lata Mangeshkar at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, which was set up in Pune in memory of her father. Dr Kelkar had met the singer just a week ago at Breach Candy Hospital. “Last week, she was not on ventilator support then, I personally felt that she was like a flame which had become bright before eventually fading off. Didi lived a full and satisfied life and had been isolating herself since the last four years. Though she could not speak, Lata didi was intelligent enough to communicate and just smiled at us. We all met her separately at Breach Candy Hospital – Asha Bhosale, Hridyanath Mangeshkar and other family members,” Dr Kelkar said.
“She recognized all of us. I tried to motivate her and kept telling her dil mein himmat hain na, ghar jaana hain, but all she did was just smile.”
“Asha tai’s granddaughter sang for her. She was in good spirits then and it may be my impression that she wanted to meet her entire family and then breathed her last,” Dr Kelkar added. “She was not just a motherly figure, but our aadhar stambh (pillar of support), like a tree that supports everything – for her family and hospital – she wanted everybody treated here.” The doctor used to regularly meet the singer at her Mumbai residence and told The Indian Express that they had spoken just a month ago. She used to cook meals for us, he recalled.
“Apart from Covid infection, she had a chronic urinary tract infection and aspiration pneumonitis. Lata didi has not left her home in the last four years and, in a sense, had isolated herself before her final journey. It was like detaching herself and slowly getting away from it all,” Dr Kelkar added.
The last time Lata Mangeshkar visited Pune was in 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the super-specialty building at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital. Even as a team of doctors from the hospital were on their way to Mumbai to pay their last respects to the Nightingale of India, Chief Intensivist Dr Prasad Rajhans said, “She built the hospital in memory of her father, and to continue to serve humanity through the hospital will be an appropriate tribute to her.”
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