Sant Kaur Bajwa, a Sikh-Briton who at the age of 115 was United Kingdom's oldest and the world's second oldest person, has died.
Sant Kaur was born on January 1, 1898 in Sialkote, in pre-partition Punjab, in a small village called Monde ke Mazeera. She lost both parents when she was young and was raised by her elder sister.
At the age of 16, she married a farmer and gave birth to four children, but her husband, Munsha Singh, died six years after their marriage.
Sant Kaur died on July 19, 2013 due to natural causes, family sources said.
She lived through three centuries, two World Wars, the Industrial and Technological revolutions, and outlived a total of six monarchs and 27 Prime Ministers of England.
In 1966, she migrated to Southall, England, to live with her son-in-law and daughter, Ajit Singh Rai and Surjit Kaur Rai.
When her daughter, Surjit Kaur, died in 1972, Sant Kaur, then 74, took on the role of caring for four grandchildren, including the twin sons of her daughter who were six at the time.
In 1998 Sant Kaur reached her landmark centenary.
While the world started to worry about the new millennium and Y2K, Sant Kaur reflected on the fact that she was born before the first aeroplane was invented, before the first radio transmission and before the discovery of penicillin.
Throughout her 115 years and 199 days, it was her resolute belief in Sikhism and God that encouraged her will to live.
She took Amrit early in life and would visit the gurdwara daily and did simran on 'Waheguru' for her own tranquillity. It was her faith that gave her the optimism and strength to survive the inevitabilities of age.
Jim Singh and Bob Singh Rai, now 47 - the twins that Sant Kaur brought up - recalled what a remarkable woman their grandmother was, and said in a statement: "She was a formidable woman. A parent should never have to outlive their children and our grandmother suffered more than her fair share of tragedy during her lifetime. It was her inner strength and resolve that carried her forward, she fought and stood tall as the matriarch of the family," they said."She will be sorely missed and we will never forget her flamboyant yet modest personality," they added.
She is survived by 12 grandchildren and 28 great grandchildren.
[Courtesy: PTI and The Guardian. Edited for sikhchic.com]
July 23, 2013