CHENNAI: It’s been 21 years since her son Sethu went missing in far-away Chennai, but there hasn’t been a day when Pokkisham Ammal hasn’t set two plates of rice in their hut in Muthupatti village. Long given up for dead by relatives and villagers, she remained resolute for over two decades. “My son will return to conduct my last rites,” she told everyone. All these years later, she is journeying to Chennai to see her son, after his photo was circulated by city-based NGO Udhavum Karangal.For Sethu himself, life has unknowingly come a full circle as he went missing after he was admitted to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) in Kilpauk in 1990. “He was believed to have exhibited erratic behaviour in the village, like heading out naked. This is why he was sent to Chennai in the care of his cousin Ravichandran for psychiatric treatment,” said a volunteer at the NGO.His cousin remembered admitting him at IMH on a Wednesday after which he was told the subsequent Tuesday that Sethu had escaped.“Those days there was no communication and we sent a letter home and searched as best as we could,” said Ravichandran. However, no police complaint was lodged because they did not know how to do so in those days, explained S Vidyakar, founder of the NGO. “He was found wandering on the streets in Ernakulam eight years ago, after which he was rescued by the police and handed over to a home called Bethlehem Abhaya Bhavan in Perumbavur,” he added.Though he would answer questions, albeit incomprehensibly, there were no clues to his identity all those years. Early in 2011, after he started mouthing the words ‘Madurai’ and ‘Sivagangai’, social workers had him transferred with a group of 20 other affected Tamil patients to Udhavum Karangal.Ravichandran, now married with children, identified Sethu as his missing cousin at the NGO’s facility at Thiruverkadu on Monday. “They had all given up on ever finding Sethu five years after he went missing,” added the volunteer. In fact, after word was circulated about him through Sivaganga district, the villagers coerced him to go to there and see if, by some miracle, it was the missing man. The minute he saw Sethu’s mug-shot, he immediately said that it was indeed his cousin, because of a scar that he had near his eye. “He got that scar while we were playing as children,” recalled Ravichandran. However, though Sethu was able to recount the same incident and the name of his cousin, he did not recognise Ravichandran.Dazed but essentially healthy, Sethu may not be aware that his mother and his entire village were overjoyed at finding their lost son. “I came here to Madras yesterday,” he says with a confused look. “I wish I could eat at Woodlands in Salem, but then my mother will get angry!” Little does he know that just seeing him will be the happiest day of her life.
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