Missing in Hardoi,Found in Lahore

With Kumars return after almost three decades,there is a festive mood at his home,and his village. His house often resonates with loud laughter; the villagers are amused by the fact that Kumar has forgotten how to speak his native language,Awadhi. He now talks in Punjabi,which he picked up during his time in Pakistan. They ask him a question in Awadhi,and he answers in Punjabi,causing them to burst into laughter. They also test his memory. A middle-aged man steps forward and asks Kumar to identify him. After staring at his face for a few minutes,Kumar murmurs,You are Nek Ram. Shiv Kumar corrects him,He is Nek Rams younger brother. Kumar suddenly remembers the man in front of him,and excitedly recalls,Oh,you are Kunwar Pal,who used to sell milk! Others clap,and Kumar is glad that his memory is not failing him. He laughs too,revealing that he has barely a few teeth now. He is helped by the villagers to get off the charpoy his legs are not strong,and he can barely walk a few yards on his own.

Looking at this scene unfold,Shiv Kumars eyes well up. Ram Kumar used to be a strong 25-year-old man,who would manually pull the plough in the fields. Others,including I,would get tired,and take breaks,but Ram would persist,and take no rest in between, says Shiv Kumar. The poor Dalit family had no land,and survived on the two brothers earnings as farm labourers. A year after Shiv Kumar got married,their father died. Overwhelmed by these events,Ram Kumar no longer wanted to live in the village. He went to Hardoi,where he pulled a rickshaw. While working in Hardoi,he befriended some sadhus who lured him towards smoking charas and ganja. He became an addict,and stopped working. He returned to the village,and would often travel to Hardwar and Allahabad for months with the sadhus, says Shiv Kumar.

Drug addiction,say villagers,left Ram Kumar mentally disturbed. He would lie on the road,bathe with ash,and would often have to be tied with a rope to the bed to be controlled. One day,in 1985,say villagers,he untied the rope and disappeared.

He didnt return for several days. We inquired with our relatives and acquaintances in Hardoi,Farrukhabad and other nearby towns,but he could not be traced. Even when our mother died,he did not return. As years passed,we thought he must have been crushed under a train or a bus, says Shiv Kumar.

What transpired in the 28-year gap between Kumars disappearance and return is a jigsaw puzzle,with too few disjointed pieces that he is able to recall a restaurant in Lahore,the sound of azaan,the chapatti he was served in jail,etc. As his family repeatedly prods him to connect the dots between Chaudhakpur and Lahore,and perhaps other places in between,all Ram Kumar is able to offer them is,I boarded a train from Hardoi to Amritsar. I reached Lahore where I was caught by the police when I was sitting at a restaurant. He says he does not know the offence he was arrested for,but remembers going to court for hearings.

Dr BL Goyal,director of Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental Health,Amritsar,says Ram Kumar was terrified when he was first brought to the hospital six years ago. He could not even utter his name. It was only a year ago that he started to speak and told us his address, he says,adding that the institute has no information about how long Ram Kumar stayed in a Pakistan jail but it appears that he was there for more than a decade and also suffered physical torture. The marks are evident there are bruises on his head,which is why he covers them with a cloth,his ears and nose are pierced too. When asked if he was tortured,mentally or physically,in the jail,he says he wasnt. His family refuses to believe him,saying his memory is hazy. Ram Kumar cuts them short,saying he used to wear jewellery in his ears and nose during song-and-dance programmes in the jail.

He denies mental torture too. The Muslim inmates would not force-feed me non-vegetarian food. I would be served vegetables and chapattis. When there would be azaan,they would offer namaz inside the jail. I stayed inside my barrack and was never asked to join them in their prayers, he says. However,he says the jail guards kept a strict vigil on him and watched him even when he was asleep.

But he is haunted by the time he spent there. When people ask him if he misses Pakistan,he gets visibly scared. He tells us to keep our doors closed,fearing that he will be taken away by some men if the doors remained open (Bandey aayenge aur le jayenge), says Shiv Kumar.

Much has changed since Kumars disappearance. Shiv Kumar had only one son when he had left; now he has three sons,two daughters and even grandchildren. Ram Kumar,too,is a changed man himself. He has de-addicted himself,gets angry at people who smoke,and even covers his mouth on smelling a bidi. I want to get back to normal health,and start working to support my brothers family, he says.