When a part of Mumbai lived and died in Manipur

In April 2018, Khomdram Gambhir Singh found his moment under the sun. A video of him singing, ‘Janewalo Zara, Mudke Dekho Mujhe’ (film: Dosti), went viral globally. In the clip, which was shot by street photographer Firoze Shakir, the man who had been living anonymously on the streets of Mumbai for 40 long years, identified himself and said he belonged to Manipur. Manipur was overjoyed. The tiny north-east state reached out to its long-lost son, spread out a red carpet and took him home. But on September 10, when the world was marking Suicide Prevention Awareness Day, Gambhir was found hanging under a bridge in his village. Even as actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide consumed the country, the former serviceman’s death became just another statistic in the country’s suicide database. medium78180891An enigma in life, 72-year-old Gambhir remained so in death too. “Mumbai is like a virus, it grows on you,” Shakir tells TOI, travelling in his mind into the alleys and narrow bylanes of Bandra and of life, and trying to fathom the reason as to why Gambhir took the extreme step. “I told him never to return to the city.” The photographer, who probably knew Gambhir better than anyone else, had shot the video that dramatically changed the ex-serviceman’s fortunes, turning him into an international sensation overnight and getting him identified by people from his village, Khumbong, in Imphal West from where he had ventured out in 1978. Stepping out of Manipur for a person from a nondescript village was almost unthinkable at that time. But Gambhir wasn’t encumbered by social mores. medium78180926Gambhir served in Manipur Rifles for seven years and returned to his village to work on the family farms after his father’s death. “Even after so many years, he remembered his rifle number,” says Shakir. According to Khomdram Kullachandra, Gambhir's younger brother, he married a woman from their neighbourhood in 1978 but they parted ways just three months later. Two months after that, he left home without informing anyone.Was it wanderlust of a former serviceman or was he running away from something? This will remain a mystery forever. “He never disclosed much to anyone,” says Shakir. “I first rescued him from some stone-pelting kids who were teasing him and calling him a Nepali. He kept admonishing them, repeating vociferously that he was a Manipuri,” says Shakir. “He used to visit a hooch shop near my house,” adds Shakir, who confesses to having been an alcoholic for a time in his life. He then started helping Gambhir with money. He used to work as a casual labourer for a living before accidents and age left him at people’s mercy. “Though he used to stay on the streets, Gambhir was a gentleman,” says Shakir. He used to regale people with Hindi film songs from the 1970s and take just Re 1. “Though he took monetary help from people, he refused anything over a rupee for his songs,” he adds.Popular in the bazaar of Bandra, he was making good money and was even robbed a couple of times. Moving about with the support of a stick, Gambhir had his entire world in a rucksack that he carried with him everywhere. It was in a drunken reverie that Gambhir disclosed his identity to Shakir on the day when he shot the video. Then a miracle unfolded. Gambhir’s villagers and family members saw the video and identified him. Two police officials came down to Mumbai and flew Gambhir back to Manipur. A crowd of about 3,000 people, including the area’s Lok Sabha MP and the MLA, were at the airport to receive their hero. “He became global news. BBC, CNN and Der Spiegel interviewed me for the story. An Assamese director wanted to make a film on his life,” says Shakir. medium78180676But as the frenzy died and Gambhir tried to settle down in his quiet village, some 3,200km from the din and bustle of Mumbai that he once called home, the silence may have gotten to him. Did he crave for the anonymity that urban chaos offered? No one can be sure. medium78180712“Gambhir didn’t return from Mumbai willingly. He loved Manipur as the place of his ancestors but had no attachment with the geography of the place,” says Shakir. He most probably belonged to Mumbai and its streets but there was nothing much he could do in protest. So the 70-year-old left Mumbai with the two Manipuri police officials for a second shot at life. medium78181211“We are totally in the dark. We are shocked,” says Gambhir’s brother Kullachandra about his suicide. No case was registered by the police and no autopsy conducted at the request of his family, thereby putting the final shroud over a mystery called Khomdram Gambhir Singh. “My tachou (eldest brother) stayed happily with all our family members after he was brought back by the state police from Mumbai. We served him delicious food, gave him pocket money and dealt with him lovingly,” says Kullachandra, a farmer. “Tachou, nevertheless, had asked us to give him some money for going back to Mumbai. He sometimes jokingly said he wanted to live in Mumbai. He even abortively attempted to move once but we intervened and stopped him last year,” he recalls. Gambhir loved to drink and alcohol was readily available in Mumbai. It might have been stifling for him back in Manipur, a dry state where social organisations like the Meira Paibi try to strictly enforce the liquor ban. Though country liquor is available, drinking is frowned upon.Atom Samarendra Singh, general-secretary, Imphal West Students’ Club, said, “We didn’t expect that he would end his life. After his return, he was a happy man. We saw him chatting with his local friends at Khumbong market.” But most of the people were just scratching the surface of a mystery. Maybe the lights faded out much before people could see. According to Shakir, Gambhir didn’t die on September 10th this year. “He died the day he was taken away from Mumbai. You can leave Mumbai, but the city will never leave you,” says Shakir. medium78181133Photo credit: Firoze Shakir, Atom Samarendra SinghUntitled Carousel 78071566