Ruslaan Mumtaz recalls ‘harrowing’ Covid battle: I am scared now

About two weeks ago, actor Ruslaan Mumtaaz as well as his entire family — parents, wife and their one-and-a-half-year old son — got Covid-19 at the same time.

“I used to hear from a lot of friends that Covid-19 is quite mild, like regular flu. But my experience was not really that. It was a bad time, I had fever for five days. I got it on January 12, and I have still not recovered, I have bad throat and cold,” the 39-year-old tells us.

The actor also urges people to take the virus seriously. “As far as you can avoid it, please do. There’s always the notion that if you get it once, you won’t get it again. But the seven days I was sick, I am scared now to get infected again,” says the Namaste Wahaha (2020) actor, adding that his attitude “completely changed” once he went through it.

A small relief for Mumtaz wasthe fact that his son, Rayaan, no behavioural change, despite having a fever and he was as “energetic” as ever.

“He was still playing around. Me and my wife were sick, and we had a baby running around who didn’t want to stay in one room. The only tough time we had was that even though we were really sick, we had to feed him, bathe him,” he shares.

However, the actor admits that “an active baby meant that everyone would have got infected”. And having aged parents didn’t make things any easier. He adds, “A child is all over the place…. Luckily for us, our house help and nanny didn’t get infected, at least they could help us from outside the rooms. All those things were sorted.”