A woman from Mysuru who was abandoned by her husband and had been missing for two years has been traced to a mental hospital in Shimla, where she is said to have recovered from depression.
After about 15 years of marriage, Padma alias Saraswathi’s husband deserted her for not bearing him a child. A dejected Padma left her mother’s house in Makanahallipalya in Periyapatna near here two years ago in search of her husband.
It has now emerged that she had reached Shimla after boarding a train from Channarayapatna. While she was roaming the streets there aimlessly, the local police, who realised that she had lost her mental balance, admitted her to the Himachal Hospital of Mental Health and Rehabilitation, where she has now recovered.
A statement from hospital superintendent Sanjay Pathak, tweeted by a news agency, led to a reporter of a Kannada daily tracing the woman’s mother and family members in Periyapatna.
Unfortunately for Padma, her poverty-stricken family, though glad over her tracing, has expressed its inability to take her back immediately given their difficult circumstances. Her mother’s old house collapsed a year ago and she has been forced to take shelter in her daughter’s joint family. Padma’s brother-in-law Krishnamurthy, an agriculturist, told The Hindu that the family prefers that she be accommodated in a destitute home for the next six months, till her mother’s house is repaired.
Though Padma, now around 40, is described to be in good mental state now, she has requested the hospital authorities to send her home as she struggles to communicate in Shimla.
“She knows only Kannada, so there is a language barrier. We want to send her back. We have spoken to the Deputy Director of Karnataka Mental Health Services to find a place for her in case her family doesn’t accept her,” Mr. Pathak is reported to have said according to the news agency’s tweet.
Meanwhile, the Mysuru district administration is trying to get in touch with the hospital authorities. Deputy Commissioner Abhiram Sankar is expected to speak to the authorities in Shimla and take a decision.
