Rabindra Sangeet helped. So did Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Perhaps the video clips of Diego Maradona’s matches, too.

But the biggest takeaway for M.B. Rajesh, Kerala CPM state committee member and former MP, was how the famed public healthcare system in the southern state lived up to its name when he tested positive for Covid-19 last month.

“My experience reaffirmed my belief that a robust public healthcare system and efficient governance are indispensable,” the politician wrote in a Facebook post that detailed his stay at the Palakkad district government hospital in north Kerala. He was discharged on November 30.

Critics would say Rajesh, belonging to the ruling Left Democratic Front, is expected to say little else about the state machinery, run by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, that won international acclaim in the initial months of the Covid outbreak in India. Since then, the number of cases has risen in Kerala and attention has been deflected from the government’s effort by controversies, such as a gold smuggling scandal, on multiple fronts.

But Rajesh’s post, which names and thanks many healthcare professionals who took care of him at the state-run hospital, does make a compelling case.

“Today morning, a journalist from Delhi had called to discuss the civic elections in Kerala. What she told me during the course of the conversation shocked me. The bill of a patient who was treated for 14 days in a renowned private hospital in Delhi apparently touched Rs 40 lakh. A patient had to spend Rs 8 lakh in Mumbai. Yesterday, a friend sent me a complaint and a bill in a private hospital in Kerala that charged a patient Rs 8.13 lakh for 14 days,”

“It is against this backdrop, I stayed 10 days in the district hospital and returned home Covid-free after spending a negligible amount,” wrote Rajesh who resisted attempts by some well-wishers to get him shifted to “better” hospitals in Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala.

“See, what would have happened if I was treated outside Kerala? Or in a private hospital in Kerala? It would have broken the back of even a middle-class person like me, with a reasonable economic background,” the former MP added.

In private hospitals, the treatment costs vary according to the condition of patients, and the bills usually are high if admission to the intensive care unit is required.

Rajesh, 49, also indirectly reminds citizens of the need to help the government in times of crises. “My father who retired from the armed forces, my wife and sister who are teachers and I had donated a month’s salary to the chief minister’s relief fund. I have received in return service that is far more valuable than what we gave. I was personally witness to that,” he said in the Facebook post.

The CPM leader makes no mention of it but a state scheme to defer six days’ salary of government employees each month for five months had ignited controversy. The government eventually withdrew a decision to extend what came to be known as the “salary challenge”.
In the Facebook post, Rajesh wrote: “I have given speeches on how the state government was always with the people. Now, my own experience has proved that.”

Rajesh shares with Bengalis two of their greatest loves — Rabindra Sangeet and Maradona.
So much so that he turned to Rabindranath Tagore for emotional support during the bleak hospital days.

Such musical succour became all the more necessary when the hospital stay was made bleaker by the death of the Argentine genius, whom the communist politician adored as much for his Left leanings as for his football.

“I have been a Rabindra Sangeet fan for several years, thanks to a friend who has studied it. I don’t follow Bengali too well but love the genre,” Rajesh, now convalescing at his home in Palakkad, told The Telegraph on Friday.

“When it comes to Rabindra Sangeet, I listen to all the singers — I have no favourites.”
Rajesh added: “I used to slip into some kind of depression in hospital, especially at nights when I couldn’t sleep. That’s when music came into play.”

He said he drew strength also from listening to recordings of classical vocalists Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Kumar Gandharva and the flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia.

A coincidence of sorts had compounded for him the “shock” of Maradona's death, four days after Rajesh had been admitted to hospital on November 21 with suggestions of pneumonia along with Covid-19 and a low oxygen level.

“I had been asked by the Mathrubhumi newspaper to write a piece on Maradona's football and politics. While I immediately agreed since I often write on sports, I tested positive the following day (November 17),” Rajesh said.

“I didn’t learn about his (November 25) death until I got the morning newspaper the day after from a nurse. I was shell-shocked to see the headline,” Rajesh said. “As a huge fan of Maradona since my teens, I was quite emotional the whole day and kept watching video clips of his matches on my mobile.”