Charity begins at home, goes the adage. Sabra Khatoon, Jharkhand governor Dr Syed Ahmad’s 107-year-old mother, practises it in letter and spirit.
A devote and pious lady, who even at this age doesn’t forget to offer five times namaaz a day, dared the heat and tested the strength in her limbs to walk up to the polling booth to vote on Thursday. Having cast her vote, the old lady has followed her son’s appeal to the citizens of Jharkhand to exercise their franchise as “every vote counts”.
Besides, she has also become one of India’s rare centurions who participated in this biggest festival of democracy. Accompanied by the first lady and her daughter-in-law Syed Hassan Tara, Sabra Khatoon drove down to the VIP polling booth at ATI building in Ranchi next to the Raj Bhawan, and then as every voter did, she walked inside the hall and waited for her chance to press the button on the EVM machine.
This is was probably the one-odd occasion when the 107-year-old lady had travelled out of the Raj Bhawan and walked into public glare ever since her son became the governor. The nervousness was visible on her face as she hurried into the car after casting her vote, but her spirits seemed pretty high.
“Like a true citizen, she has responded to her son’s appeal to the citizenry to vote,” said Shams Tabrez, ADC to the governor. He said that 107 years is simply a number for the governor’s mother, who keeps fit and healthy by God’s grace and discharges her daily chores alone. The Jharkhand governor has often claimed that he is a mamma’s boy and has never parted from his mother in his 43 years of political career.
{{/usCountry}}“Like a true citizen, she has responded to her son’s appeal to the citizenry to vote,” said Shams Tabrez, ADC to the governor. He said that 107 years is simply a number for the governor’s mother, who keeps fit and healthy by God’s grace and discharges her daily chores alone. The Jharkhand governor has often claimed that he is a mamma’s boy and has never parted from his mother in his 43 years of political career.
{{/usCountry}}He takes her blessings every day and attributes every success in his life to her. According to the governor, his mother was born when Mahatma Gandhi had just started Satyagrah in South Africa.