Boy reunited with parents after 4 yrs

His parents’ search for their second son did not bring them anywhere. And nothing about him was known to them until they received a letter from Sr Emrit, director of the Snehanivas, a shelter home for street children, sometime last month. Rakesh was under her loving care for the last 32-odd months.

"Wehad no clue as to where he had come from. The only thing which we knew was that he didn’t hail from South India. When some of our nuns spotted him all alone in a train compartment at Ernakulam town railway station, we asked him whether he would like to accompany us. And the little boy readily obliged,” recalled Sr Emrit about the day he came under their guardianship.

"On our arrival at Changanassery, we informed the station master about the boy and his new place of stay.”

Before coming to the Snehanivas, he had reportedly served in a hotel in Cuddapah, Andhra Pradesh, and later with a woman shopkeeper in the same town. He had a scuffle with her son and the lady mercilessly slapped him, which forced him to leave that place.

The boy somehow reached Kozhikode and made friends with a milk vendor by name Balan. One day his wife got furious with Rakesh for some minor offence and beat him up. The same day, the boy escaped from that place. That’s how he boarded a train to Thiruvananthapuram.

While growingup at Snehanivas and attending classes at the nearby BTK LP School, Fathimapuram, Rakesh’s new guardians made numerous efforts to trace his parents. (The only thing the boy seemed to know at his arrival was the name of his village — Belghana. But none knew where that place was). They even made an unsuccessful attempt to reach Chief Minister E K Nayanar through the Sunday programme in Asianet, Mukhiamantriodu Samsarikkam.

Sr Julia, one of the nuns at the Snehanivas, who spent over 25 years in north India, would often narrate to the boy the names of countless towns of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra after Rakesh said one day that his uncle was in Kalyan, near Mumbai. Last month while scanning the Atlas, the same nun said the name Bilaspur’ and asked the boy if he had ever heard of it. It struck him and he shook his head in acknowledgment.

Soon, accompanied by the nun, Sr Emrit went to Changanassery railway station to spot Belghana. Gopinathan Nair, a reservation clerk there, had served some of hisinitial years of service in Bilaspur and he knew that Belghana village was near there.

Following a request from Sr Emrit, Nair wrote a letter in Hindi to the station master of Belghana, the reply for which arrived a couple of weeks ago. It was found that Rakesh’s father was attached to that station. Nair immediately contacted the nuns, who in turn talked to the Belghana station master.

After learning that Rakesh is in Kerala, his parents expressed their willingness to meet the boy at the earliest. A week ago, the nuns were informed that Baliram and Malati were arriving by Bilaspur-Kochi Express on Sunday. As usual, the train arrived several hours behind schedule and the poor parents, even after repeated public announcements, failed to get down at Ernakulam Jn, where Kuriachan and Mathukutty, two neighbours of the Snehanivas, were waiting for them. On the train’s arrival at Harbour Terminus, a duty policeman, accompanied them to Ernakulam junction by Kochi-Trichy Tea Garden Express. The duo fromChanganassery received them there.

"When Mathukutty telephoned me on Sunday night about the arrival of Rakesh’s parents, the boy was fast asleep. I first thanked the almighty and later woke the boy up out of joy. And he kept himself awake till their arrival in the wee hours of Monday by Kannur-Thiruvananthapuram Express,” said Sr Emrit, shedding tears of joy.

"At the sight of his parents, his eyes were filled with tears and he was dumb-struck. But he was back on his own.”

The nearly four-year stay in Kerala has made some curious changes in 12-year-old Rakesh. He seems to have forgotten his mother tongue and is more comfortable in Malayalam. In fact, the boy, a left-hander, got the inter-school prize for best Malayalam handwriting. And according to Sr Emrit, he also sings well in both Malayalam and Hindi.

Rakesh will accompany his parents on Wednesday on way home but plans to return after Diwali to pursue his studies in the local school, where he is in the third standard. His parents have agreed tohis request.

Besides his parents, Rakesh has a brother and sister elder to him and a younger sister in his native village.

Baliram ran out of words to explain his gratitude to the nuns at Snehanivas for giving his son what he calls a punarjanmam. "In fact, he was lost in October 1994 and was rediscovered in October 1998,” said Baliram.

Earlier this year, a 12-year-old Telugu boy, Gowri Naidu, was restored to his parents at his native village in Vijayanagaram, by the nuns at the Snehanivas.