Kolkata: Sushila Murmu, the woman from Jharkhand who left her village more than two decades ago after her husband's death, and converted to Christianity, was reunited with her son when he came to the south Kolkata shelter home on Friday morning. Madan Besra has finally taken his mother home.
Besra got on a bus for Kolkata on Thursday, and reached the shelter home early on Friday morning. Workers at the shelter home said Murmu had not been able to sleep properly in the intervening night. "It seemed that she was torn inside. Over the past 25 years, she has accepted the shelter as her home and the inmates as her family members. She bonded with every resident here and shared many moments with them. Now, everything has changed for her," a resident of the shelter home said.
When Besra finally stood before his mother, Murmu broke down, and Besra started consoling her. Over the past two decades, Murmu has worked at the shelter and saved some money. She asked her son to take her to a nearby market to buy some things.
"When we spoke to Murmu on Friday morning, she was initially undecided about leaving the shelter home. It was now her home, too. She spoke to her son for a long time. Finally, she decided to go back to her village, Dhaupagar, in Godda district," said Ambarish Nag Biswas of West Bengal Radio Club.
After the amateur radio operators tracked Besra, he gave a condition to his mother to change her religion. But she was not ready to do so. On Friday, Besra apologised for his behaviour and told the shelter home residents that he would not leave his mother alone any more. "I was wrong when I asked her to change her religion. I was more concerned about how the villagers would react. I was concerned about the well-being of my family. But over the past few days, a number of people from the district administration spoke to me. That gave me the courage to accept her without any condition," Besra told Nag Biswas.