Mirzapur (Uttar Pradesh): When 95-year-old Pyari Devi woke up to the knock on the door late at night, her heartstrings were drawn. She knew it was her son Amarnath, who had left home 32 years ago. It was a mother's instinct. But when she woke her daughter-in-law Chandravati, lying next to her, to open the door, she slept off thinking it to be a dream or midnight hallucination. Not waiting further, Pyari Devi got up and walked straight to the doors. Her age-induced bent in the spine notwithstanding, she unlatched the door and lo! A man she had given birth to with her blood and bone was right in front of her. Moments stood still as both mother and son held on to each other.
Tears ran down the wrinkled cheeks of Pyari Devi while Chandravati, who had woken up by then, was still to come to terms with reality. She was unable to believe that Amarnath had returned. She too was in awe with streams of tears flowing down.
In 1992, Amarnath left his home to participate in the Kar Seva in Ayodhya. After the work was over as he was returning home, violence broke out in Jaunpur where stones were pelted on the train he was travelling in. However, managing to escape the melee, as he was about to reach Jamalpur, police arrested him and sent him to Mirzapur jail. Some days later, he was released on bail with the help of Jamalpur mukhiya Shiv Murt Singh. But his term in the jail had changed something about his perspective on life and he did not want to return. "My financial condition was bad and I was not keeping well," remembers Amarnath, who left home at the age of 40 and was associated with RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad since childhood.
So he went to Ayodhya and from there to Vrindavan where he embraced the life of a monk, renouncing worldly ties. As the disciple of Baba Kishore Das, he started staying in an ashram in Jaipur. His family moved on—his wife struggled to raise their four children, and his son and daughters built their lives, uncertain if they would ever see their father again.
But during the Maha Kumbh of 2025, something stirred within Amarnath. One night, he had a dream—his mother calling out to him. Overwhelmed by emotion, he knew he had to return. When he arrived at his home in Jamalpur, his heart pounded as he knocked on the door. And the rest is history.
Chandravati had raised their children alone by selling toffees and working in a biscuit factory. "At times neighbours helped, and at others, relatives. But I worked at various places to make both ends meet," says Chandravati.
The moment son Atul and daughters Archana, Anjana, and Moni, all who are married and settled in Mumbai, got to know of their father's return, they immediately returned home. “He left when I was just 12,” Atul recalled, holding back tears. “I don’t want to let him go again.”
Relatives from near and far came to witness the reunion, and for the first time in decades, the house was filled with laughter instead of longing.
Despite the emotional reunion, Amarnath remains committed to his life as a monk. He has spent years at an ashram in Jaipur and intends to return. “I am happy to see my family, but I have taken Guru Diksha,” he says. “I will keep coming and going, but my path is different now.”
For Pyari Devi, who has lived 95 years with countless memories, this reunion added years to her life. "I have nothing to wish for now," she says in a sense of fulfilment.
Read More
