If you are one those who has lost his faith in humanity or one of those who cannot bear to see the cruel hands of modern civilisation nudge their way into the by lanes and crevices of morality, justice, I bring to you a small story that seems like the script of any of those ‘lost and found formula’ films aka Amar Akbar Anthony, Yaadon Ki Baarat etc. that the 20th century Hindi cinema revelled in putting on the celluloid. But this story is as real as it gets and its characters are flesh and blood like you and me.
Kanwar Pal Singh also called Sudesh, carrying his height of 5.7”, a body clad in white kurta and black pants, a toothless face and a mind in a psychologically unstable state, trudges along listlessly on the footpath of an unknown city. At that very same moment on seeing Kanwar Pal Singh, a boy sitting on the opposite side and reading the Amar Ujala early in the morning, makes a call.
Meanwhile in another city…
A phone rings. Mr. SP Singh, Executive Director CPP of HPCL gets a call at his office at seven in the evening from an unknown boy asking him to meet at a Dhaba he owned on the outskirts of Ghaziabad. Mr. Singh, frantically pushes his office files shut and pulls out of his chair to head for the Dhaba.
Why would he pay heed to the stranger, you might think? After all, what could be so urgent?
Mr. Singh, on reaching the Dhaba breaks into tears of joy seeing his brother, Kanwar Pal Singh (the one described above) who had strayed from home and not returned back since the last 20 days. He embraced Sudesh to take him back home where he gave his innocent brother a hot water bath and made him sleep comfortably to soothe his mind, make him forget the trials of the last few troublesome days.
This was the reason behind the urgency in which Mr. Singh left his office.
On the 21st day of his fraternal search, the Good Samaritan had called Mr. Singh after seeing and rechecking the Advertisement Mr. Singh had placed in Amar Ujala through releaseMyAd, an online advertisement site. It publicized a photograph of his lost brother along with his details of physical description and condition, contact address and the promise of monetary reward.
This is a true tale of love, faith, altruism, life’s twists and turns.
If you are like the persons I described at the beginning of the page, then I am sure your faith in humanity has inched to an increase of 20 %. If you are already a joyful soul, then it has squished your heart with a tingling pain of happiness. To the customer care and executives of ReleaseMyAd, who helped book the Ad, it brought a smile on their faces, knowing that they had brought back joy into one family’s life. To the pragmatic minded 21st c technology oriented, logical newbies there is good news – You can breathe a sigh of relief because gone are the days when you would have to sing a song common to your clan to find your kith and kin! (For the convenience of the FB hooked generation I am referring to the Bolly Blockbuster Yaadon Ki Baarat). The alternatives are ready to be explored!
Written By (Devina Gupta:Pursuing PhD in History, Spanish Language enthusiast, trained Indian classical and western choir singer. Love to read, write and explore the world in its various avatars.)
