In Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur district, a woman was reunited with her brother after 18 years, thanks to the power of social media. The clues were distinctive features like rickety fingers and a broken tooth.
“I still can’t believe that I have found my long-lost brother Bal Govind. I am thankful to social media, which brought us together, separated by time and circumstances,” said Rajkumari, who hails from Haathipur, a small village in Maharajpur town of UP’s Kanpur district.
Rajkumari, Bal Govind, and their elder sister lived many happy childhood years with their parents in Inayatpur village of Fatehpur town. Their father was a farmer.
“In 2006, amid financial struggles, my brother Bal Govind, then just 14 years old, joined a group from Inayatpur heading to Mumbai in search of work. He was determined to support our father. Reluctantly, our father agreed, under the condition that Bal Govind would return home within a year,” recollected Rajkumari.
She said that Bal Govind left his friends in Mumbai to work elsewhere. After a few months, the group returned home but Govind never did. “We made several attempts to contact him but failed since we didn’t have his exact address,” Rajkumari said.
Years passed, and Rajkumari and her family had nearly given up hope of finding Bal Govind, until recently, when she stumbled upon an Instagram reel featuring someone who bore a striking resemblance to her long-lost brother. “Not only did the person in the reel resemble my brother but also his broken tooth and rickety fingers were very familiar,” said Rajkumari who then contacted him on Instagram and gradually introduced herself.
Rajkumari says Govind initially ignored her but they gradually struck up a conversation when she reminded him of their times together and he began to recall some old memories.
On Thursday, Bal Govind, his wife, and two children eventually reached Haathipur, where Rajkumari stays with her husband and in-laws. While Haathipur saw an emotional reunion, Bal Govind’s homecoming was also widely celebrated in their village.
“This is truly amazing. This is the power of social media. This is something rare. I am happy for the family,” said Santosh Singh, a Haathipur resident.
Bal Govind shared why he couldn’t return home for so many years. “I worked for almost a year in Mumbai. But when I tried contacting the group who came to Mumbai from my village, I leant that they had already gone back. I panicked and, in a state of confusion, I mistakenly boarded a train to Rajasthan instead of one to Fatehpur,” he recalled.
In Rajasthan, said Govind, he met someone who turned out to be his saviour. The man also helped him find work as a daily wage labourer. “I made several attempts to return to my hometown, but due to some mental disorder or illness, I couldn’t recollect the address as I was left with only some faded memories of my childhood. Meanwhile, I met a girl named Ishwari Devi, with whom I got married and was blessed with two children, and then I gave up the thought of going back,” he said.
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