Seven-year-old Dadhulu had run away from home in distant Khammam in Andhra Pradesh, taking his five-year-old younger brother Salar Basha with him, because his mother beat him up (Dadhulu) for truancy. And now Dadhulu's younger brother was missing.

The two children had boarded the first train they found at Khammam Railway Station on May 9. They got out at Guntur, boarded the Kochi-bound Hyderabad Express and promptly went to sleep. When Dadhulu opened his eyes his brother was not to be seen. Obviously, he had got out somewhere. When asked, Dadhulu mumbles, "I don't know."

Dadhulu was found on May 15, wandering off the Ernakulam north goods shed by a lorry driver, who works there during leave.

"I saw him walking and I shouted. He ignored it. Iwalked to a bunker to have tea and bought a paper. As I was reading it, I saw him approaching slowly. He looked famished. I bought him a meal, which he devoured. And when I left he followed me home. I have three children and I told my wife to allow him to stay. I bathed him, gave him fresh clothes and left him to play with my children. He was with me for a week," Basheer told The Indian Express.

Dadhulu was seen sleeping on the veranda of the Advocate-General's office for three days in a row. Thomas Paul, brother of former MP Sebastian Paul, works in the Advocate-General's office. "When I saw him with Basheer I took him home, just to ease Basheer's burden but he stayed with me just for a day. He was more comfortable with Basheer," he recalled .

"My first instinct was to give him one rupee. It would only have added one more child to the street children's horde," Basheer said. He reported the matter to the central police station. Dadhulu was brought to The Indian Express office by Thomas Paulon May 18, to restore him to his parents.Dadhulu had perked up by then and was all smiles as he answered queries about his home, exhibiting no signs of homesickness in a strange place.He gave his parents' names and address. The Indian Express traced them through its sister publication The Andhra Prabha.

Dadhulu was silent then about his missing younger brother... which became known only when his uncle Syed Ghaffar, a railway porter in Vijayawada came to claim him today and asked him about the missing child. This scared and anguished Dadhulu.

"His parents are grief-stricken. They have not eaten anything ever since the two children vanished," Ghaffar said.

Dadhulu's parents Khajulu and Najia Begum are impoverished slum dwellers. His father works as a manual labourer, and earns just Rs 30 a day.

"His father had no money to come and collect him. Because I am a railway employee I do not have to pay train fare and hence I came to take him home," Ghaffar said.