Kewal Krishan, a
107 year-old Indian man who has been a witness to many of the historic events
like the deadly Spanish Flu of 1918 and most importantly the drafting
committee of the Constituent Assembly of India, was administered his first shot
of COVID-19 vaccine in New Delhi on Monday, PTI reported quoting his son.

On Monday, Krishan
stepped out of the home for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic broke
out for the purpose of inoculation. He lives in south Delhi with his family.

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Krishan’s son, 72,
told PTI that his father is feeling fine and has not yet shown any symptoms of
adverse effects of the COVID jab. He said that the 107-year-old even performed
his daily prayers after returning home from the vaccine centre.

We have literally
kept him in a bubble and not let him go out of the house at all. Given the
nature of the virus it was important to not expose him to any risk. Even for
the vaccination, we took him to the centre in our car and came right abck to
home after the vaccination,” said son Anil Krishan.

“When the
pandemic hit us all last year and we got to learn about the 1918 Spanish Flu
too, I used to ask my dad about that time, but he was just a five-year-old boy
then, and with age and infirmity, his memory has faded, along with reduced
eyesight and hearing capacity,” 72-year-old Krishna told PTI.

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He said his father
was born in Kartarpur in Jallandhar district on August 4, 1913, just a year
before the outbreak of the World War I.

“In 1930s, he
moved to Delhi, and worked in the home and defence ministry, and was later part
of the drafting committee of the Constituent Assembly of India. My father
really worked hard, and made his way up the ranks. After Independence, he went
on to become a deputy secretary in Rajya Sabha,” the son said.

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Old sepia-toned
image of a group photograph taken in February 1948 with B R Ambedkar, the
architect of the Constitution, sitting in front at the centre and Kewal Krishan
standing behind him, is part of the well-preserved family archives, he said.

“We have got
this picture and a few other photos related to the making of the Constitution
framed for posterity. In another photos, one can see Jawaharlal Nehru signing
on the Constitution, with my father watching him close by. These are pieces of
history in our family collections now, and we treasure it,,” Anil Krishna
said.

So, he has seen
the World War I era and the Spanish Flu that followed it, the making of the
Constitution, the Independence of India in 1947, and making of the Republic in
1950, and the COVID-19 pandemic, and now got his vaccine shot. That’s quite a
spectrum of experience in a lifetime, and he will soon turn 108, he said,
adding that “I and my wife got vaccinated recently.” The vaccine shot
was given to him at the Fortis Escorts Heart Institute (FEHI) in south Delhi, a
spokesperson of the facility said.

In July 2019,
Kewal Krishan had undergone carotid artery stent implantation at FEHI, after
suffering multiple repeated minor strokes that had caused “transient
paralysis and loss of speech of right side of the body”, and he was on the
“verge of permanent paralysis,” doctors at the facility said.

“Investigations
revealed that he had a 95 per cent calcified left carotid artery stenosis
(blockage in the main artery supplying the left half of brain), following which
the surgery was done,” a senior doctor said.

Another
centenarian, Tulsi Das Chawla, who was born a few months before the outbreak of
the Spanish Flu, had received his first shot of COVID-19 vaccine at a private
facility here on March 5.

Chawla, 104, was
given a dose of Covieshield at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and he had not exhibited
any adverse effects on that day.