A woman who spent 13 years at the Chandigarh branch of the All India Pingalwara Charitable Society has reunited with her family. She was known as Shanti at the shelter home. Her real name is Roshni, and she is around 58 years old.
She met her husband, Ashok, and her daughter, Shivani, when they came to the shelter home to meet her. The reunion happened after a counselling session helped her recall memories of her past.
How Roshni Ended Up at the Chandigarh Shelter Home
According to the Pingalwara Society, the Himachal Pradesh Police found Roshni in Paonta Sahib in August 2013. She was in a severely distressed condition, wandering on the roadside with no one to look after her.
She could not give clear information about herself or her family. The police completed the legal formalities and sent her to the Pingalwara shelter home in Chandigarh. With no details about who she was, the shelter gave her the name Shanti and she stayed there for the next 13 years.
Counselling Session Unlocks Her Memory
The turning point came through counselling. A session helped "unlock" memories of her past, which led to her identity being established as Roshni and her family being traced.
Her husband and daughter then travelled to the shelter home to meet her. The family was reunited on Sunday.
- Roshni was found by the Himachal Pradesh Police in Paonta Sahib in August 2013
- She was unable to provide clear information about herself or her family at the time
- The police completed legal formalities and sent her to Pingalwara in Chandigarh
- She lived there for 13 years under the name Shanti
- A counselling session helped her recall her past, leading to the reunion with her husband and daughter
Our Take: A Reminder of What Memory Loss Can Cost a Family
This story is a happy ending, but it took 13 years to arrive. In our view, the most important detail here is not the reunion itself but how long it took. A woman was found on a roadside, could not say who she was, and that gap in her memory kept her away from her husband and daughter for more than a decade.
To put it plainly, the system worked as well as it could once she was found. The police completed the legal process, and the shelter gave her care and a name. But without a way to identify her, she remained "Shanti" instead of Roshni. It was only when counselling helped her memory return that the family could be found.
This raises a simple question for shelter homes and police across the country: how many people are living under names that are not their own because no one tried the kind of counselling that worked here? Memory loss does not erase a person's past. Sometimes it just locks it away. The right kind of help can open that lock, and when it does, families get years back that they thought were gone forever.
For readers, the lesson is direct. If someone you know has gone missing and could be in a shelter home, do not give up. Keep sharing details, keep following up, and keep asking shelters to try counselling and memory-focused care. Roshni's family got her back after 13 years. That should give hope to others still waiting.
