35 years on, man f inds mom during f lood rescue operations | India News

PATIALA: As a flood rescue volunteer, Jagjit Singh was no stranger to lost-and-found tales. But a mission last week turned the tide his way and set him up for the reunion of a lifetime – with his mother.

Jagjit came face to face with Harjit Kaur after more than three decades at his maternal grandparents’ home in a Patiala village on July 20. He recorded the meeting on Facebook, confessing he may not be able to control his emotions. Tears flowed as mother and son hugged.
Jagjit was six months old when his father died. Harjit remarried and his paternal grandparents took him away as a two-year-old. As he grew up, he was told his parents had died in an accident.

Decades on, aunt put Jagjit on track for reunion with mother
A fortuitous turn of events brought mother and son together in Boharpur village of Patiala. A devotional singer at the main gurdwara in Qadian, Jagjit Singh landed up in Patiala with his NGO, Bhai Ghanayia Ji, for flood rescue work following the devastation in the recent monsoon fury.
It was an aunt of his who set up the Bollywood-style reunion. “While I was in the rescue relief operations in Patiala, one of my aunts (bua) told me that my nani’s (maternal grandmother) house was also in Patiala. She vaguely revealed that it was Boharpur village where my maternal grandparents might be living,” Jagjit said.
Jagjit soon reached Boharpur and met his maternal grandmother, Preetam Kaur. “I started asking her questions. She became suspicious initially but after she revealed that my mother Harjit had a son from her first marriage, I broke down. I said I was the unlucky son, one who could not see his mother for over three decades,” said Jagjit.
For the elderly Harjit Kaur, who is unable to walk properly due to a leg ailment, it was much more than finding her son. With Jagjit, 37, was his wife and their 14-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son.
Jagjit came to know his mother was alive only five years ago. “But I had no more information as my grandfather and all my relatives including my taya (uncle) and tayi (aunt), who knew about my parents had passed away,” said Jagjit.
Rancour had crept into ties between his grandparents on both sides and festered all these years, so much so that his paternal grandparents never revealed anything about his mother.
His paternal grandfather, who raised him, died in 2014 soon after Jagjit cleared matriculation. “Looking at some childhood pictures, I found one with a woman, not knowing she was my mother. I used to ask my grandfather and he would tell me that my parents had died in a car accident. My grandfather was a retired police officer and shifted from Haryana to Qadian in Punjab two decades ago,” he recalled.