Bengaluru, Jan 7: A WhatsApp message bridged 20 years and 2,000km of gulf separating a 48-year-old man from his family and facilitated their reunion here on Sunday.
It was an emotional moment for Mahaveer Singh Chauhan, from Jhab village in Jalore district of Rajasthan, when he embraced his 24-year-old son, Pradyuman Singh, on a Nimhans hospital bed. Pradyuman was four years old when he last saw his father and his younger brother Raghupal was just one.
Mahaveer, who suffered huge losses in a business he ran in Mumbai, severed ties with his family, abandoning his home in shame in December 1998. His father, Ganpat Singh Chauhan, and family members lodged a police complaint and looked for him, but gave up after five years of searching. Mahaveer moved to Bengaluru where he has been living for 20 years.
He was found unconscious on Saturday at a rose farm in Doddaballapura where he worked as a supervisor. Mahaveer’s friends Ravi and Kishore Kumar Daftary took him to a local hospital, from where he was referred to Nimhans as doctors suspected he had a spinal injury.
“Mahaveer rarely spoke about his family. What I got to know from him all these years was that he was married and had two children and that his father was a man of stature,” said Daftary, also from Rajasthan and works as a photographer in Bengaluru.
As Mahaveer’s condition worsened, his friends grew worried and felt a family member’s presence was essential in such circumstances. The duo took a shot in the dark — circulating a photograph of Mahaveer on WhatsApp in the hope it would come to the notice of his relatives. His driving licence, bearing the name of his village — Jhab — helped in the identification process.
The message was forwarded at 4pm on Saturday in multiple groups dedicated to Rajasthanis on WhatsApp, and what followed next was an incredible story of reunion.
Mahaveer was unaware of reunion until last moment
By 6 pm,Daftary was flooded with calls and messages enquiring about the man. “However, it was a call from a quaint village in Rajasthan that had me smiling. Mahaveer’s son Pradyuman was at the other end and he confirmed his identity and told me he was taking the early-morning flight to Bengaluru on Sunday,” Daftary said.
As Daftary and Ravi waited for Pradyuman’s arrival, hundreds of people from the Rajasthani community gathered on the Nimhans premises. However, Mahaveer was not informed about the whole thing as they feared it might upset him.
At 11am Sunday, when Pradyuman touched his father’s feet, it was a heart-stirring moment for many. A teary-eyed Mahaveer told his son, “I’m free of all my guilt today; take me back to the land where I belong.”
An elated Pradyuman said, “It’s unbelievable. We thought we had lost him. Destiny works in mysterious ways. My mother always believed he will come back one day.”
Mahaveer was shifted to Jayanagar’s Apollo Hospital on Sunday afternoon and is recuperating. “We are planning to take him back to Rajasthan once he is discharged,” said Pradyuman. However, doctors said they are awaiting his medical reports and will take a decision on his discharge after studying the same.
A polyglot who earned with his hands
Mahaveer speaks eight languages and is well versed in Kannada and Marathi. He worked as a chauffeur, photographer, gardener, salesman and a supervisor at a farm, during his stay in Bengaluru all these years,” said Goverdhan Giri, another of Mahaveer’s friends in Bengaluru.
Though Mahaveer had decided he would never to return to his family, he was, in fact, getting affectionate towards them over the past three years. “He had a social-media account under a pseudonym and closely followed his sons. He sometimes expressed his desire to see his family,” Giri added.
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