Modi's wife may end her pilgrimage after election results are out

Days after Narendra Modi's dramatic declaration of being a married man became a hot topic on the social media and gave his opponents a subject to target him on, another dramatic event might be in the offing - the first public appearance of Jashodaben, the wife of the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate.

According to her brothers, Jashodaben is on a pilgrimage and will talk to the media when she returns on May 17 - that, incidentally, is a day after the Lok Sabha election results are declared.

"She will talk when she returns from her pilgrimage. Till then, please excuse us," says Jashodaben's elder brother, Ashokbhai Modi, who sits in his small grocery shop in Unjha, around 120 km from Ahmedabad. He refuses to speak about Narendra Modi or his marriage to Jashodaben, but says: "Once she comes back, I will bring her to you (the media)... you can ask her." Clearly irritated with all the media attention on him and his family, Ashokbhai adds: "Why don't you ask Narendra Modi? He will tell you why he made this revelation after so many years."

FOUR DECADES OF SEPARATION

Snapshot of Jashodaben’s life

• Birth: In 1952
• Primary education: From Brahmanvada, 20 km from Unjha
• Marriage: Was married to Narendra Modi when she was 17 years old and studying in seventh class
• Matriculation & profession: She completed her SSC in 1974; underwent primary teachers training in 1976
• Deeply religious: A friendly and helpful person, Jashodaben has led a religious life; she is known to be a devout worshipper of Shiva
• Modi worshipper, too: It is learnt she pays obeisance to the deity with her husband’s photograph in her ‘pooja thaali’

Asked when Jashodaben left for her pilgrimage, Ashokbhai says it was four days ago - that, incidentally, is a day before Modi filed his nomination papers for the Vadodara seat. Others in her village also said she had left around four days ago.

In Brahmanvada, about 20 km from Unjha, where Jashodaben lives with her brothers, village elders have deep sympathies for Jashodaben. They have apprehensions over Jashodaben's future after Modi's revelation. "Will Narendra Modi accept her and call her back," asks Babulal Jhadav, the sarpanch of Brahmanvada and Jashodaben's classmate in primary school.

Sitting in his small flour mill in Brahmanvada, Jhadav remembers Jashodaben as a very jovial and intensely religious person. "It's difficult to say from her appearance that she is more than 60 years old. She is a very helpful, friendly religious person... a great worshipper of Shiva," Jhadav says. According to one of her neighbours, Jashodaben keeps her husband's photograph in her pooja thaali as she pays obeisance to the deity.

Jashodaben, fondly called Jassiben in Brahmanvada, was married to Modi in 1969, when she was about 17 and Modi 18. The village house where they were married is now occupied by her brother Kamlesh Modi, who lives in the one-room-with-kitchen house with his family. Jashodaben stays four houses down the lane.

Villagers also believe she decided to study further and went on to become a teacher only after being abandoned by Modi. "She had studied only up to class seven when she was married. It was after they parted ways that she decided to study further," Jadhav says.

Jashodaben had got her primary education in Brahmanvada, where her father Chimanbhai Modi was a teacher. She completed her matriculation in 1974 and primary teachers training in 1976. Villagers are not aware which schools she taught in but she retired as teacher at a primary school in Rajosana village, 20 km from Brahmanvada.

"She was a very humble and soft-hearted lady... her students loved her," says Rafiquebhai, sarpanch of Rajosana.