WhatsApp helps lost woman head home to Chennai from Sangrur

SANGRUR: Had it not been for mobile phone-based social networking platform WhatsApp and a local NGO worker's plans to celebrate his son's birthday in a destitute home, a mentally unfit Tamil woman might have ended up spending years at Pingalwara-a home for destitute-in Sangrur. Unable to interact with locals, 40-year-old Usha Ravi couldn't share her joy when she met her brother and father on Friday, two months after she left her home and accidently landed in a Punjab village.She left with them for Chennai on Saturday.
The woman, who couldn't really narrate her journey from Chennai to Punjab, was found roaming in Baliaanwala village in Bathinda district on August 20. Locals handed her over to police, who produced her in a court, which ordered to shift her to the destitute home in Sangrur and locate her family.
On August 21, Usha was sent to Sangrur Pingalwara, where she was putting up silently and nobody made an effort to ask her address. However, her ordeal took a positive turn on October 2, when a Sunam-based social worker went to Pingalwara to celebrate his son's 15th birthday with the inmates.
"I frequently visit Pingalwara and that day, I spotted a woman silently sitting in a corner and asked about her from managers of the destitute home. They said they couldn't interact with her due to language barrier," said Jatinder Jain.
As Jain raised an alarm, Coimbatore-resident Arvind Kumar MK, a 2011 Punjab-cadre IAS officer serving as additional deputy commissioner in Sangrur, responded. He interacted with Usha and found that she was a resident of Chennai.
Next came the role of WhatsApp. Arvind posted her photographs, other details and address on a WhatsApp group of Tamil Nadu-based officers. "Incidentally, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Ambattur, Chennai, responded to my post and traced Usha's family within hours. He even helped the family members in arranging their journey to Sangrur and back to Chennai," said Arvind.
He added that the woman appeared mentally unfit. "She was narrating different stories regarding how she left home and reached Bathinda," he added.
One version, which she shared with Pingalwara managers, was that she was accompanying a group of locals, who were touring various religious places. She lost them in Agra, boarded the wrong train from Agra and landed at Bathinda. "But with the efforts of some good individuals, Usha boarded back the train to Chennai with her brother and uncle today morning," said Arvind.