93-year-old Urdu poet dies five days after finishing Covid-19 treatment

Famed Urdu poet Pandit Anand Mohan Zutshi ‘Gulzar’ Dehlavi passed away on Friday, five days after he had returned home after beating Covid-19. He was 93.

Famed Urdu poet Pandit Anand Mohan Zutshi ‘Gulzar’ Dehlavi passed away on Friday, five days after he had returned home after beating Covid-19. He was 93.

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Dehlavi was first detected as being coronavirus positive on June 1, following which he underwent treatment at Sharda hospital in Greater Noida. According to the hospital authorities, the nonagenarian had recovered within seven days.

According to his family members, his test report came back negative on June 6 and on June 7, he was sent back home. But, he remained weak and was also suffering from other age-related ailments.

“We had lunch on Friday and he then retired to his room. When we went to check on him around 2.30pm, he had already passed away. We immediately rushed him to Kailash hospital where the doctors tried to revive him but he was gone by then. Doctors suspect he died of a cardiac arrest,” Anoop Zutshi, Dehlavi’s son, said.

Zutshi, who is based out of Pune, said he had planned on taking his father with him after he made a complete recovery.

The family said they are making arrangements for his cremation and it will be held on Saturday afternoon.

“He was brought dead to the hospital around 3.20pm. There wasn’t much anyone could have done for him by then,” said VB Joshi, spokesperson, Kailash Hospital.

Dehlavi was born in 1926 in Old Delhi and was a freedom fighter and an inquilabi poet. He was also the editor of ‘Science ki Duniya’, the first Urdu science magazine to be published by the government of India in 1975.

Indian historian, S Irfan Habib, shared his condolences on Twitter after the death of the poet.

“Anand Mohan Zutshi Gulzar Dehelvi passed away today and truly an era of Urdu poetry has ended. He was also my colleague in CSIR as an editor of Science ki Duniya. Not many people know about Shahajanabad as well as him. Great loss for Urdu and for the city of Delhi. RIP,” tweeted Habib.