Kochi: Every day, a man in the same worn-out clothes would walk up to the Mulavukad police station on Kochi’s Container Road, drink water from a purifier outside and quietly walk away. He carried no phone, no identification and almost nothing else. To the police officers, he appeared to be just another man wandering the streets.

They had no idea that the stranger returning to their station day after day was a 37-year-old M.Tech engineer named Rashtrpal Manohar Chahandae from Maharashtra who had once drawn nearly ₹1 lakh a month reportedly as an employee of Mahindra & Mahindra.

He had been missing from his family in Maharashtra’s Nagpur since 2022. It took the patience of the Mulavukad police, a few fragments from his past and some persistent detective work to finally reunite him with his family after four years.

Rashtrpal reached the Ponnarimangalam area in Kochi towards the end of July after wandering through different parts of Kerala, including Varkala, Kadakkavoor, Guruvayur and Thrissur. His first connection with the police station was the water purifier outside.

“He came to drink water from the purifier. We spoke to him casually, and then he started coming regularly. Initially, he was extremely reserved, and he didn’t speak initially. But gradually, we built a rapport with him,” Sub-Inspector Thomas Pallan told Onmanorama.

But once he became comfortable, the officers discovered that he spoke fluent English and Hindi and could engage them in detailed conversations about vehicles, engines and mechanics.

“His conversation was very charming. He spoke very nicely about various things,” Thomas said. The officers slowly began asking questions and piecing together his past.

Rashtrpal had completed his M.Tech in Design from Dr VK Patil Memorial Engineering College in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. Through campus placement, he secured a job at Mahindra & Mahindra and worked there for two years as a mechanical engineer.

“His salary was around ₹1 lakh. But he had never formally resigned. While the job was ongoing, he suddenly fell into mental depression and just walked away,” the SI said.

The eldest of four siblings in a farming family, Rashtrpal had decided to marry only after his three younger sisters were married. By then, both his parents had died, and his sisters had settled into their own lives.

“It became a lonely life. Rashtrpal disappeared in 2022 and spent the next four years wandering across India. His family continued searching for him, but had no breakthrough,” Thomas said.

Empty-handed, but with a sharp memory
When he reached Kochi, Rashtrpal had virtually nothing with him. The officers bought him a couple of T-shirts and trousers because he kept arriving in the same clothes. They also arranged a place for him to sleep in a shed beside the station.

During the day, he walked three to four kilometres between the Ponnarimanagalam Toll Plaza and Kothad Bridge towards Kadamakkudy Islands, stopping at small shops for tea before returning to the station.

He soon gave himself another role — night watchman at the police station. “He always says, ‘I am the night watchman,’” Thomas said, laughing. “In the morning, he would come and say, ‘I can give you all the details of who came at night and what happened in the morning.’”

At night, he would sometimes wake up and sing Bollywood songs for the cops on duty. Money did not interest him much either. If officers gave him ₹100 for a shave, he would get groomed and return. But if they offered him money again the next day, he would refuse.

“He would say, ‘No need, I have money. Why do I need money now?’” Thomas said. His only request was to wash vehicles at the station. While the cops took care of him, they simultaneously tried to find his family.

The clues that led him home
Although Rashtrpal had walked away from his old life, his memory remained remarkably sharp. He could recall telephone numbers, years of study, teachers and details about his college.

The police contacted his college, alerted police stations in his home region and began sending his photographs to numbers he identified as belonging to friends. They also took him to hospital and consulted a psychiatrist. The assessment was that he was suffering from depression and that reconnecting with his family could help him recover.

The breakthrough came when one of the messages reached Aman Sampatrao Ramteke, Rashtrpal’s brother-in-law and a schoolteacher. The family confirmed that they had been searching for him since 2022. They confirmed all the details the police retrieved from Rashtrpal. According to Thomas, however, no missing-person case had been registered in Maharashtra.

On August 17, Aman arrived at Mulavukad with Rashtrpal’s sister Priyanka and maternal aunt Rekha Sidharth Bhasharkar. The reunion was not immediately warm. When Priyanka tried to hug her brother, he stepped back. “Don’t touch,” he told her.

The family then showed him old photographs, including his pictures with his sisters, college friends, college tours and photographs of Rashtrpal himself from his younger days. The memories slowly returned.

Yet he did not want to leave Kochi. “He had no interest in leaving. His desire was to stay right here,” Thomas said. The officers finally persuaded him with a promise. “We sat with him, spoke to him and told him, ‘We will come there after a week and then bring you back here,’” Thomas said.

The promise worked, and the police took Rashtrpal and his family to Vyttila, from where they travelled by bus to Bengaluru and then towards Nagpur.

The Mulavukad officers called the family on Tuesday to check on their journey. Rashtrpal remained convinced that he would return to Kochi in a week. “Asked whether he needed any help, he replied, ‘No help needed, I am a strong man. I will come back there after a week.’ We are happy that we could help him,” Thomas said.