Mumbai: Screenwriter-lyricist Varun Grover on Thursday revealed he has recovered from coronavirus, two weeks after contracting the virus. In a blog detailing his diagnosis, experience in isolation and subsequent recovery process, the “Sacred Games” writer said he contracted COVID-19 “even after strictest of precautions”. Grover, 40, said he was diagnosed coronavirus positive after undergoing an antigen test at a testing camp set up by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in their housing society on September 15. While, his partner, Raj Kumari, tested negative.
The writer-comic immediately went into complete isolation at his apartment and started medication, he said. “I am happy to announce that I have now recovered from COVID-19 – a full 14 days after testing positive and 19 days after the onset of (mild and slightly unusual) symptoms,” Grover wrote in the blog he shared on Twitter. The National Award-winning lyricist, who was being “super careful”, said he had stepped out for weekly grocery shopping on September 9, after a gap of 10 days, and started feeling mild symptoms – cold, stuffed nose, weakness, lack of hunger- the next morning. Grover added that his sense of smell had “completely vanished” by September 16, a day after his diagnosis.
It was only 10 days later that his sense of smell started returning gradually and the writer said though it’s not “hundred per cent back”, his condition is improving day by day. “Summing up, I never had fever, scratchiness in the throat, diarrhoea, or breathing difficulties through the entire run of the virus. The worst symptoms I had were a combination of weakness, cold (runny or stuffed nose), and uneasy stomach. It lasted for a day and faded away gradually,” he said.
Grover said he didn’t plan to keep his diagnosis secret but the initial days were a mix of “panic, figuring out medication and setting the processes in place”. The multihyphenate personality said he was gripped with “extreme anxiety” when he was diagnosed.
“The symptoms were mild but the future was uncertain. The feeling is surreal – to know that the pandemic you have been reading about and trying to avoid obsessively for the last six months is inside your body,” he added. “What if Raj Kumari also tests positive and both of us are forced to hospitalize? Who will take care of our cats?” he recalled. Grover described COVID-19 as a “complicated illness” as the patient has to double down on discipline and ensure they don’t infect others. “Which means very limited and strictly protected contact with the caregiver – and that makes it a very lonely battle against a very unpredictable virus.
“In that sense, it’s also a very bureaucratic illness – the days of recovery are spent in a long list of detailed, repetitive processes,” he added.
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