Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

A three-year long ordeal ends for family

By Ramya Kannan

Srinivasan with his parents--a reunion--after three years on Monday. - Photo: K. Pichumani

CHENNAI SEPT. 15. For the past three years, one family has been living a zombie existence in a Housing Board flat in Karaikudi. On Sunday, the members of the family broke out of their zombie existence with a whoop of joy, ecstatic that their long lost only son was finally found!

G. Srinivasan ran away from home nearly three years ago, angered by the fact that his father chided him for not scoring high marks. Cycling from his Karaikudi home to the next village, he jumped onto a lorry heading towards Chennai. He was offloaded along with the goods the lorry was carrying at the Central Station, after which he walked to the Parrys bus stand. It was there that a group of volunteers from a North Chennai based service organisation found him and took him under their wings.

"Almost all the children who run away from home are reluctant about revealing their address. But Srinivasan was more adamant than most boys," says Paul Sunder Singh of Karunalaya, the NGO who found the child. For three years, he insisted that he was from Kariapatti village in Madurai district, though efforts by volunteers to locate his parents there proved futile. Meanwhile, he settled in Karunalaya's home for street and working children, was admitted in school and also performed well.

However, the volunteers did not give up their efforts to wrest the truth out of him. It was only after other runaway boys in the home with him started going back to their families that Srinivasan told the organisation that his parents were from Karaikudi and provided an address.

Volunteers, who were on another rehabilitation trip to Periyakulam, stopped by in Karaikudi on their way back. It turned out that Srinivasan's parents, the Gurusamys, were indeed living in the area. And they were thrilled that their son had been found. In fact, the entire colony was rejoicing along with the Gurusamys. "We spent a lot of money giving ads on television, radio and newspapers. We even went from fortuneteller to astrologer, hoping for some direction. Those three years of our life were spent in a haze," says Mr. Gurusamy.

However, it is not a story that has ended well yet. Srinivasan is happy to see his parents, but is also steely in his resolve not to go back until he has completed his 10th standard examinations. Naturally, this worries his parents. But the Karunalaya volunteers assure him that Srinivasan's reaction is only `typical' among children who are away from home for a long while. "He will go home, no doubt. This phase is merely part of the process," says Mr. Paul Sunder Singh.

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