A Real Life Veer-Zaara Story. Chinese Man Trapped In India For 50 Years Now Has Family Here

It is hard to imagine what half a decade away from our home and country can do to us. It is even harder when we are forced to live in a foreign country while our family and friends stay back home missing us, having no idea where we are.

We can only hope that we are reunited with them one day. And this hope is what has kept Wang Qui alive all these years.

Wang Qui joined the People’s Liberation Army of China as a surveyor. He helped the Chinese army to build roads.

In 1963, while on duty, he strayed off his camp when he went on a stroll. He lost his way and didn’t know how to get back. He was picked up by a Red Cross van and was handed to the Indian Army.

Back in the 1960s, the ties between India and China were tense. You can only imagine Wang’s plight. He was working for the Chinese Army and ‘conveniently strayed’ into Indian territory.

 

He spent the next 7 years in Indian prisons while they ascertained whether he was a spy or not. In 1969, a court ordered his release. But he was still not allowed to leave the country.

The police took him to Tirodi, a small village in MP and told him to stay put there. He was not given any documents and was told to not leave the country.

 

Back then he missed his family very badly. He could not adjust to the new food, did not know how to speak the language and the culture was alien to him.

He had four brothers, two sisters and a mother back home he sorely missed.

“I cried in the night as I longed for my family. I missed my mother.”

 

He slowly adjusted and started working in a flour mill to make a living. He even married a local girl named Sushila, now his wife of 40 years.

Sushila didn’t understand him because Wang still hadn’t learned the language properly. Some months later she warmed up to him.

He even tried to start a business venture but police would visit him and beat him up because he didn’t pay any bribes. His neighbours maintain that Wang is a very honest man.

 

He wrote many letters to China but got his first reply only in the 1980s and spoke to his mother for the first time in 40 years in 2002.

She said that she was very ill and wanted to see him before she passed away.

But Wang was still not allowed to leave.

His mother passed away in 2006. His nephew did come as a tourist and helped him get a passport in 2009.

Why doesn’t he leave then?

 

“My family is here. Where would I go?”

That went right through the heart Mr. Wang. We hope he gets to see his brothers once more.

Even though his heart is in India now.

Though he will get to reunite with his family back home, it is after all, for love, just like in Veer-Zaara.

News Source – BBC