For 16 years, Munna Devi waited. Her husband had walked out after a minor family dispute and simply never came back. Her two young sons grew up without him. The searching eventually stopped, but the not-knowing never did.
Then a WhatsApp message changed everything.
Ramesh Ganjhu, 45, a daily wager from Benti village under Tandwa block in Chatra district, left home nearly two decades ago and drifted across cities for years. Unknown to his family, he had been struggling with mental health issues and substance dependence. He eventually ended up homeless on the streets of Chennai.
On 16 June, volunteers from Chennai-based humanitarian organisation Udavum Karangal found him on the streets of Poonamallee and brought him to their rehabilitation centre, where he received medical and psychiatric care.
As Ramesh slowly began to recover and regain memory, volunteers pieced together that he had roots in Jharkhand. They photographed him, wrote up his details, and circulated both through volunteer WhatsApp groups operating across multiple states — a quiet but effective digital network used by humanitarian workers to trace missing persons.
The message travelled far. It eventually landed on a phone at a small grocery shop in the Kalyanpur area of Tandwa. The shopkeeper looked at the photograph and recognised the man immediately. He reached out to Munna Devi.
What happened next had an element of coincidence that is difficult to believe.
Munna Devi contacted her elder son Nageshwar, who had left Jharkhand to find work. He was based on the outskirts of Chennai — just a few kilometres from the rehabilitation centre where his father had been recovering. Father and son had been living in the same city, neither aware of the other.
Within hours of making contact, Nageshwar reached the centre. The reunion took place on 18 June.
Ramesh returned to his village on 21 June. Villagers gathered to receive him, and by most accounts the welcome was overwhelming.
Munna Devi, who had spent 16 years not knowing whether her husband was alive, could barely speak. "My prayers have finally been answered," she said.
Nageshwar, who was only five years old when his father disappeared, said he had little more than faint memories of him. "I have faint memories of him and the pain of losing him early in life," he said. "I am just happy he is back."
Srinivasa Rao, the social worker at Udavum Karangal who was involved in Ramesh's rescue, said the organisation found him on the streets and immediately began rehabilitation. The decision to circulate his details through volunteer networks was routine procedure — but in this case, it worked faster and more precisely than anyone expected.
Pappa Vidyaakar, founder of the NGO, reflected on what the case illustrated about the role technology can play when it is used with genuine intent. "When technology is combined with empathy, it doesn't just connect devices — it reconnects lives," he said.
(With TOI inputs)
