Media Release

Mangaluru, Feb 2: In a noble act, White Doves, an NGO that rehabilitates destitutes, helped an elderly lady from Bengaluru, who had landed in Mangaluru by mistake and lost her way, reunite with her son.

White Doves was contacted by Pandeshwar police to help take care of an elderly lady. One look at the lady who seemed stone deaf and could barely see, and manager of White Doves Jerald Fernandes, with years of experience in the field, insisted that she was not destitute and must have lost her way. The police however insisted that she was destitute, and the case was handed over to White Doves. On searching her belonging in front of the police, Jerald found some phone numbers and started contacting them. White Doves lost no time in tracing her son in Bengaluru who was frantically searching for his elderly mother.

Vasathamma aged around 80 years has the habit of visiting temples and since her late husband worked for the Railways, she has a pass and travels to various temples. This time, without informing the family she headed to Melmaruvathur Temple and Om Shakthi Temple near Pondicherry from Bengaluru. After her visit to the temple near Pondicherry she headed to Mysuru and from there took the Mangaluru train instead of the Bengaluru train by mistake and landed in Mangaluru.

With her faculties not in order and not knowing any other language but Telugu, a person pretending to be a good Samaritan came to her rescue but was in fact robbbing her of her gold earrings when the public noticed, caught hold of the conman and handed him over to the police. As the police did not know what to do with the old lady, White Doves was contacted to come to her rescue. The police were indeed grateful and surprised at the speed at which White Doves worked to find her family as the police insisted she was destitute and manager Jerald insisted she was lost.

The lady kept saying she was from Salem. But then it turned out to be that she was from Bengaluru and not Salem as she has lost her memory too.

Vasanthamma was happy to be reunited with her son Kandaswamy. Kandaswamy was in tears to see his mother again. He said he had had no hopes of seeing her again as she was also highly diabetic and had high blood pressure, and without medication he wondered the worst might have happened to his mother.