Famous television journalist Naveen Kumar shares a powerful tribute to all involved in saving his life when he was struck by COVID.
In the video where he emotionally chokes up several times, he says after 42 days of being afflicted with COVID, he is back though his voice is still not the same, he has faith its full strength will return.
Naveen said soberly that he survived COVID and he has a lot to say but did not know where to start so said he would start from how he got saved.
The doctors had given him four hours to live, while his life was slowly ebbing away, and while struggling on oxygen, he could barely breathe. The question arose to his mind that who had saved him. Was it banging thalis or a great sadhu? The answer to that question is the ones who saved him were the sacrificial ones who did not care for their own lives and were giving up their lives to save others. These doctors have sacrificed their lives and even gone far from their families to save others.
In a moment of epiphany, Naveen Kumar burst out that the doctors were the greatest and thanked the L & J P Hospital doctors and the team of staff. He noticed that as doctors and staff wore the PPE kits the whole day, bags of sweat would form in their forearms at the end of their suits by the end of the day and literally kilos of water would fall off from them as they took off their PPE suits each night. Each day, they walked under the weight and heat of the kit, bravely fighting to save others.
Naveen Kumar said angrily that when a jhola chap (quack doctor) abuses the real doctors trying to spoil their name and pull them down in order to sell his own products, it was despicable. Though he never mentioned Baba Ramdev’s name, one could guess he was referring to him due to the recent mockery that Baba Ramdev made of the doctors.
He stressed that it was important that Indians do not mock medical science for it is that which saves lives as it saved his own life. He also was touched by the love and dedication of these great glorious doctors who wanted the world to be a better, stronger, and more beautiful place.
It is these people, Naveen said, who experience brushes with death, see people dying, bodies wrapped in white linen at the end that taste the truth of life and cannot lie, cheat because they are faced with the ultimate reality of life each day, death and only truth comes out of them.
The quacks and the fake sadhus are teaching people to kill and hate, they are dividing the nation between Hindu and Muslim, Mandir and Masjid, and such people cannot be real sadhus nor swamis. Such sadhus who laugh at doctors’ death are not real sadhus. These people are not holy and are enemies of humankind and the nation and can never belong to you or me, and they are harming doctors who are heroically saving lives.
These kinds of sadhus have no idea about faith, religion, God, humanity, all these sadhus and sadhanis are enemies of humanity, identified the real sadhus are the ones who stand with humans
He said, “It is now time to love, to care, and to understand we are all humans, we need to love children and care for all at such a time as this when death is dancing in front of us from the 4 corners of India.
When people are thrown down to die with no value for life, our generations will ask us why we lost humanity and we will have no answers for our lapses of humanity.”
Naveen said earnestly “Don’t get carried away by the clothes people wear, whether sadhu clothes or otherwise, in the end, all that will not make any difference.”
He also said that in this nation, the real swamis are rotting in jail and again stressed, “My soul tells me I will never stand with them who raises fights between Hindus and Muslims and causes fights for mandir and masjid,” and also said, “I will never stand with them who stands with Israel today,” referring to the heinous way the nation even killed the children of Palestine.
He asked a soul-searching question of where will his road go when he comes out of the hospital. He wants to work for humanity.
He gave a heavy emotional tribute to Dr. Sonu who looked after him day and night, without his constant care, he would not be alive. Naveen Kumar was heavily infected with COVID and since there was no hospital bed available for Naveen, Dr. Sonu kept him in one room in his hostel for 4 nights, sleeping in the same room as him. He treated him, gave him medicines, oxygen, took full care of him.
Naveen Kumar said that he kept feeling that Dr. Sonu’s life was now in danger because of him and did not want him to take that risk, but Dr. Sonu was determined to save his life. He has the courage and strength to keep him in the same room and even after he was in the hospital until he was discharged, Dr. Sonu took care of all his medicines, injections, and oxygen. He gave up everything and immersed himself in a mission to save Naveen Kumar’s life.
Naveen Kumar emotionally thanked Congress leader, BV Srinivas who on one phone call within half an hour from Faridabad organized an oxygen cylinder, that too after midnight. He said that if BV Srinivas had not brought the oxygen right at the nick of time, he would not be alive today. He was deeply touched by Srinivas’ personal involvement in getting him oxygen, and Srinivas taking calls in the dead of the night without getting proper sleep. Naveen took 3 days of vigorous oxygen treatment which revived his lungs and enabled him to survive.
Naveen Kumar thanked a string of names of people who helped him such as Durdhesh Pathak, Vijay Nair who arranged for a bed in L & J P Hospital in Delhi, “Dr. Hedge,” and his wife Anjali who took care of him even though his own brother and mother were in the hospital and he later lost his own brother but was still caring for Naveen and trying to save his life.
He thanked his dear friend Nikhil who debunked the fake rumors of his death on social media and his friends who tried to make him laugh. His dear old friend of a 25-year-friendship told him he was never so terrified of anything as losing Naveen during that time.
He thanked another friend, Sandeep Chaudhuri who kept encouraging him that he would not die, they still had much to do and Naveen gave endless names of friends whose hearts were palpitating with fear and worry and thanked all in Article 19 who lived in different parts of the world, whom he has never met or would ever meet, but they prayed for him, Muslims kept Rosa with prayers, and he will never forget it.
He said that when it is all over, Indians have to reflect on how they want to move forward. He recalled how the Tablighi Jamaat were disgracefully maligned by the Indian media when a few thousands of them met in Delhi in 2020, while when millions gathered in Kumbh this year, the media was noticeably mild and hardly criticized the huge spreader event which did result in fresh COVID cases and deaths.
These incidents have struck him hard and he says it is now his goal now to highlight those unfair situations.
He asked stirring questions, “If our country has gone low, then who is responsible? Who is responsible for not enough beds in hospitals, for making Indians chase after oxygen? For each breath dying patients have to struggle, even dignity in death was denied, bodies were thrown into the Ganga. Who are these people who in the name of Ganga tell lies, who are those who destroyed the nation?”
He sternly said, from now on these people cannot keep destroying India and said,
“You have to decide, do you want Mandir, Masjid or do you want 6 hospitals.
You have to decide if you want to keep fighting Hindu, Muslims or do you want good schools for your children?
You have to decide if you want to be enemies with everyone or do you want great colleges and universities.
I keep saying that the public health system and public education system have no comparison, it is the ultimate we need.
In this country, we need the nationalization of hospitals, the nationalization of schools, universities. It is a great crime that we give different treatment for education, medical care.”
He ended with a poem to poet Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena, in a gist this is a rough translation of it.
If there is a fire in your room
Can you sleep peacefully in the other room?
If someone is dying in one room
Can you pray in the other room?
If you can, then I have no words for you
The nation is not built on paper deals
Papers can be torn up and
If you could not care for anything
Then you have no business to even breathe
Nothing is greater than human life.
Think India what you want seriously, think…get your priorities right.
Link to his video: