Granny crosses all hurdles to pursue doctorate

Clad in pristine white shalwar-kurta with a matching hijab covering her head, she sits on a sofa against decorative Arabic inscriptions on the wall featuring 99 names of Allah. One of the names is Rahman the merciful.
It is divine mercy, says 75-year-old Zubeida Yacoob Khandwani, which propels her to seek knowledge regardless of hurdles she has faced. It is this joie de verve, this positive energy that makes her stand out. When most septuagenarians hang up their boots and the prosperous ones amongst them either bask in past glory or pen memoirs, this gutsy grandmother has opened yet another chapter in her life. She is researching for a doctorate on Sufism.
"I would have finished it a decade ago but for a few setbacks. My guide, renowned Urdu, Persian and Islamic Studies scholar Prof Nizamuddin Gorekar (he taught at many institutions, including St Xavier's College in South Mumbai) died, followed by the death of my husband (businessman Yacoob Khandwani and younger brother of former MLA, Haj Committee of India chairman Amin Khandwani)," she says. Then she fell and fractured an arm.
Someone else might have given up. But she didn't. Tomes on Sufism, many volumes of the Quran and its commentaries, journals, history books jostle for space at the Khandwani House, a heritage bungalow (built in 1882) in Mahim. "I shifted many of the books into my office and even at the godown as we ran short of space here," says son Sohail Khandwani, businessman, managing trustee of Mahim Dargah and a trustee of Haji Ali Dargah. A family with a legacy of over 200 years, it is the fifth generation of the Khandwanis living in the same house.
Zubeida was barely 17 when her mother died and she was married. She dropped out of college.
Later she graduated in Arts through a correspondence course and subsequently completed LLB too.
"There was a time when my mother, my elder sister and I were at the same educational complex run by the Sindhis in Bandra. Then it felt a bit embarrassing that my mother and I were students though we went to different classrooms," recalls Sohail Khandwani. The real surprise, recalls Sohail, came when his father decided to do a Masters in Economics as his mother joined an MA course in Islamic Studies.
Zubeida, also general secretary at the All India Memon Jamat Federation, got attracted to Sufism as she began visiting mausoleums of Sufi saints like Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti (Ajmer), Nizamuddin Aulia (Dehi), Makhdoom Mahimi and Haji Ali. "Sufism is not a new religion. It is a way of life that makes you tolerant and modest," she says.