– Mohammed Atherulla Shariff
Mangaluru: Though the mystery is yet to be resolved how a mentally retarded woman travelled 250 kms, which takes 6 hours, but it is immaterial now since the lost mother is found after 14 years.
Farzana from Maddur town in Mandya district of Karnataka, who was separated from her children, was reunited with them recently, reports ETV and Vartha Bharthi.
In 2009, Corrine Antoinette Rasquinha, founder of White Doves Psychiatric Nursing Home, received information about a mentally ill woman walking on the streets. She brought the sick woman to her nursing home and provided necessary psychiatric treatment. Despite all her earnest attempts, Rasquinha could not find much about the mysterious woman, as is normal in many such cases. Farzana could only say that she was from Maddur and her house was near a meat shop. As there are a lot of places with similar name, Rasquinha and her dedicated team at White Doves couldn’t really locate the village or the family of Farzana. Despite the lack of clarity, the institution had sent people to different locations to find the woman’s family. All attempts were in vain, until 2024.
Meanwhile, another mentally ill woman from Maddur was identified by her family members who came to take her. Rasquinha then gave these family members a note on Farzana and asked them to drop it if they found a Maddur Meat Shop in their area. Luckily, the note ended up in Farzana’s son Asif’s hands. And then, there was no looking back. They rushed to meet Farzana at the NGO.
Asif said the family members had kept up their search to locate his mother for many years. When Farzana disappeared in 2009, Asif and his sister were very young. “My sister hadn’t seen my mother at all. Now we are very happy that we have got her back,” Asif told Vartha Bharati.
“We found Farzana in 2009. She couldn’t give us any proper information then. We had lost all hopes about her going back. Two weeks ago, we reunited a woman from Maddur in Mandya with her family. We had informed them about Farzana. With their kind help, we could now reach Farzana’s family,” Rasquinha said.
