It happened about two years ago. One of my friend’s brother went missing or rather he went out of the house and did not return.
Friend’s brother was around 50 years old then. He was diagnosed with mental illness earlier on in life and lived mostly at home roaming around the neighborhood.
One day he did not return and the search for him started. People went all around Kathmandu, all old age homes, all hospitals, all shelters, the brother’s usual hangout locations. Nowhere was he to be found. Police were informed.
3 days later people found him body in the morgue at a hospital. The family went to check and confirmed it was him. Family performed his last rights at the Aryaghat below the Pashupatinath temple on the banks of the river Bagmati.
As per Hindu customs they performed staunch mourning for 5 days. Since he was unmarried and did not have any kids the rights needed to be performed were taken care for by his brothers, including my friend.
On the fifth day they finished the mourning ritual with a puja and all changed the dresses and were getting ready to have proper meal after the five days.
Suddenly my friend got a call from one of his friends who had gone out to an lost person shelter in Patan. He asked if the rites had been completed. Then he said he found the lost brother. To confirm he sent a photo through Whatsapp, which everybody looked at. To the surprise of all it was the lost brother!
This brings up a few questions to anybody’s mind — who did they find before? Whose body was cremated? What basically happened?
The questions remained unanswered till today. The lost brother is fit and fine and still hangs around the neighborhood.