CHENNAI: In a small house in distant Gaya, Bihar, there was a garland on the photo of a middle-aged man that stayed for about eight years.
Mahadev Chowdary, Gandhi (57) to those in his native, went missing when the family went for a pilgrimage to the Ganges a decade ago. After efforts for two years at various places to locate him went in vain, the family assumed he was dead. They performed the rites and put up his photo in the house.
That is when his brother, Mahendar, received a phone call. The woman at the other end, Thahira from Tamil Nadu, asked him if he was Gandhi’s brother. “Initially, I was shocked because it has been years since I heard the name from an unknown person. My voice went feeble when I acknowledged. Then she said: “We have found your brother. Would you like to talk to him?” That left me in the grip of a torrent of emotions, woken up by his voice over the phone. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I spoke to my long-lost brother.”
Thahira is an inspector with the State Crime Records Bureau in Tamil Nadu, which had undertaken the task to reunite lost persons with their family in far-flung places across the country.
For Mahendar, August 19, was the happiest day in his life. “The first thing I did was to remove the garland from his photo,” he told Express over phone from Gaya.
The family, including the brothers, their wives and children had gone for a pilgrimage to Ganges in 2006. While on their way back, Gandhi went missing from the railway station at night. “Initially, we believed he boarded the train. When he was not to be found even the next day, we suspected he might have boarded the wrong train. We filed a police complaint, but did not hear anything after that,” Mahendar recalled. Not giving up hopes, Mahendar, a carpenter, saved money for about a month from his daily wage of `400 and went to Delhi, Mumbai and Ganges in search of his brother.
Immediately after receiving the call, Mahendar boarded a train to Chennai. Here, he learnt that his brother had lost his way and had landed in Chennai. By then, he had gone into depression and withdrew himself into a shell. It took days for the helpers to establish his identity after being rescued from the streets about four months ago.
Ever since the initiative of SCRB began in November last, it has managed to reunite 46 people with their families. For this, SCRB has joined hands with NGOs across the State. A training programme was conducted in association with 113 NGOs across Tamil Nadu, which were asked to provide details of wanderers whom they had rescued. “We also make sure that the family is ready to accept the member. If they have moved on, we do not force them,” said an officer. “After the initiative was taken up, we started publishing photos of not just missing persons, but also people rescued by NGOs in the official website of the State police — www.tnpolice.com,” another official added.