RAIPUR: In these times of darkness, reuniting with their long lost son after 10 long years was no less than a miracle for this couple.
Forty-two-year-old Shiva Prakash was wandering in Jagdalpur city of Bastar during the lockdown when he was intercepted by health officials and taken to a quarantine centre.
Faced with language barriers, Prakash was unable to tell the officials about his native or identity.
“We tried hard to retrieve information about him. A quiet man, he couldn’t follow Hindi, but we kept persuading him. After staying here for a few months, he finally wrote a couple of lines in Tamil. We learnt his name was Shiva Prakash and he belonged to Echur in Cheyyar of Tiruvannamalai district. We sent his information to his native and confirmed his identity,” said Alexander M Cherian, vice-president of Jagdalpur Red Cross Society.
Officials in the Bastar district administration, who are heartened by this reunion, believe that had it not been for the pandemic, Prakash would still be a vagabond. Prakash managed to inform officials that he came to Bastar after he boarded a lorry.
After being intercepted by the health department, he was not allowed to leave the quarantine centre.
Bastar district administration contacted locals from Prakash’s village who further helped in tracing his parents, who had lodged a missing person report a decade back at the local police station.
“We were left surprised as Prakash didn’t reveal where was he all these years. During his four-month stay at the quarantine centre, we worked on winning his trust and didn’t probe him about his past. Thanks to the efforts of Collector Rajat Bansal, Prakash is with his family,” Cherian told Express.