Finding a long lost mentally challenged brother can be the script for a film. But the story of Ramanand Bharti is no script for a film. It is a real-life story.
Twenty-five-year-old Ramanand, a native of Chopan, a small town in the Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, went missing from his home from June 18, 2013. He was a special person, suffering from developmental disorder since childhood. After nine months, he was located in Vijayawada and reunited with his family, thanks to Mother Teresa’s home for the destitute Nirmal Hriday Bhavan and the doctors of VIMHANS who treated him.
Ramanand, who left his home in June 2013, was located by the volunteers of Nirmal Hriday Bhavan near Lenin Centre on the Eluru Road in Vijayawada on October 20. He was found in bad mental and physical shape, with maggots boring deep into his infected flesh on both his limbs.
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According to Vishal Indla of VIMHANS, the doctors of organisation visit Nirmal Hriday Bhavan twice a month to serve the ones suffering from mental health problems. “That was when we first met him and we put him on treatment. But on February 4, we received a call that he had become very violent. And we brought him to our hospital for prolonged treatment,” said Dr. Vishal.
Ramanand was in no state of mind to disclose his whereabouts and was not able to even recollect his name. But after continuous treatment of about four days and counselling by the doctors, he spelled out just four words- Chopan, Preetnagar, Vicky and Sonbhadra, said the consulting doctor at VIMHANS, Virender.
The doctors then surfed the Net and found that Chopan was a town in UP. They immediately contacted the nearest police station with the description and after a while they (police) confirmed a missing case and gave the phone number of a family.
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The family was contacted on February 9, but initially they were circumspect, as they suffered from such hoax calls in the past. But when they spoke to him they were convinced and six of the family members immediately drove to Lucknow to catch a flight to Delhi and reached Vijayawada via Hyderabad in just a few hours.
“We spent lakhs of rupees on advertising in different states such as West Bengal, Jharkhand, UP and MP. But we never realised that we would find him here. For us it is joy unbound.
The entire town of Chopan is abuzz with Ramanand’s news, and is looking forward to welcome him,” said Ramanand’s brother Rajkumar Bharti, unable to control the tears.
According to Rajkumar, his brother had given the slip to the caretaker and boarded a train to Delhi and subsequently taken a train from Delhi to the southern states.