YouTube clip reunites man with family after 40 years

MUMBAI: An Indian man missing for 40 years was to be reunited with his family after a YouTube video of him singing a popular Hindi film song went viral.

Khomdram Gambhir Singh was 26 when in 1978 he left his home in Imphal, in the remote northeastern state of Manipur, and never returned, according to reports yesterday.

For four decades his family heard nothing. Then a clip showing a grey-bearded man singing a Bollywood song on a Mumbai street 3,300km away appeared online.

In it, the singer identifies himself as Khomdram Singh of Manipur. A viewer brought the video to the attention of a local association in Imphal who informed Gambhir’s family.

They recognised him as their missing relative and contacted Imphal police who spoke to their counterparts in Mumbai. Officers then tracked Gambhir down to the suburb of Bandra where he was living rough.

“He was making money as a beggar signing old Hindi songs,” Firoze Shakir, who shot the video and uploaded it to YouTube in October last year, said.

Shakir, a street photographer, said Gambhir, now 66, had told him that he had been a construction labourer but had suffered a couple of accidents and turned to drink.

On Wednesday, Imphal officers flew to Mumbai to take Gambhir back to his family. They departed Mumbai yesterday. — AFP