Woman, 24, reunited with family after 17 years

Tuesday, Aug 05, 2014

Patna: In what could pass for a perfect Bollywood script, a girl from Bihar was reunited with her parents 17 years after she got lost during a train journey from Patna to Guwahati.

Twenty-four-year-old Gudia, the only daughter of Chhote Lal Yadav from Phulwari Sharif locality in Patna, was separated from her family at the Barauni railway station in 1997 while on her way to Guwahati. She was only seven years old at the time.

Family sources said the girl was travelling with her maternal uncle Ajit Kumar who worked in the Indian railways.

At Barauni station, Kumar got down to buy some food but the train left without him. He had run as fast as he could to catch the train but it pulled out of the station with little Gudia on board. Subsequently, a case of missing persons was registered with the Barauni railway police station.

Eventually, the girl reached Guwahati where the Government Railway Police personnel sent her to a local orphanage, considering her as an orphan. She stayed at the orphanage for 17 years waiting for her parents to come.

Due to the emotional trauma caused by the incident, the girl remembered only two things when she reached there — her father’s home location and the fact that one of her uncle worked in a local biscuit factory.

Based on this information, officials searched for her parents but in vain.

All that changed three days ago when she was able to recall a few more details and told the orphanage officials that she was a resident of Phulwari Sharif locality in Patna where trains pass by her home and potters make earthen pots.

She also told them that her uncle Satyendra Prasad works in biscuit factory there. Acting on the information, the orphanage officials got the numbers of the biscuit factory and contacted her uncle who confirmed that the girl had gone missing two decades back.

Her parents were very emotional when they met their daughter at the orphanage on Monday.

“Mama-Pappa, you had forgotten me but I had not. I always missed you a lot. Please take me home soon. I can’t wait here even for a second,” her parents quoted Gudia as having told them when they met her.

“Papa, please get me home soon … I don’t want to lose you again,” she told her father.

She was ecstatic to meet her family members and says is looking forward to celebrating Raksha Bandhan with them.

Raksha Bandhan is a regional holiday to celebrate the sacred relationship between brothers and sisters, with rakhis tied by the sisters to mark the occasion. This year it will be celebrated on August 10.

Gudiya is the only sister of her five brothers and said she was excited to be finally with her family “after all these years”.

“We had lost all hope but thanks to God we have got our daughter back. We don’t know how to thank God (for this),” her mother Panjaria Devi said.

By Lata Rani Correspondent