ADVERTISEMENT

Every parent lives in a perpetual fear of losing their child. While children might see that as parents being annoying, it’s actually their love for them. And the fear is so universal that it has been depicted in TV shows like ‘Black Mirror’ and movies like Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Prisoners’. However, one father didn’t take cues from those stories to protect his son. His inspiration was a little desi.

According to Mid-Day , Kurla resident, Shiva Malayam suffers from short-term memory loss. His father, Venkana said that his disability led to an incident recently,

“My son is studying in a school for differently-abled children at Cotton Green. On Tuesday, he got off the school van and ran away. Later, I got a call from GTBN station that he had been found.”

Memory loss can be caused by a multitude of things like medications, psychological disorders, dementia, nutritional deficiency, and head injuries. It might affect both long-term and short-term memory. In Shiva’s case, it was short-term has he shows symptoms like forgetfulness and getting lost in familiar places.

So, how did Shiva’s father get a call on his number if he’s unable to remember anything? Dhananya Yadhav, had the answer to that.

“When I tried to talk to him, he got scared. A commuter helped me to calm him down and escort him to my cabin.”

Yadhav is a TC and he noticed Shiva sitting at a platform in his uniform. He called up a female official who spoke to Shiva. That’s when they found Shiva’s father’s phone number tattooed on his hand. Genius!

Now, if you are wondering how did he get the idea to that, the answer’s pretty simple. He saw Aamir Khan’s ‘Ghajini’. Venkana said,

“A friend had seen Ghajini and suggested I do so. Around 5-6 years back, I tattooed my number on his hand.”

In ‘Ghajini’ (which is a remake of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’), Aamir Khan’s character suffers from short-term memory loss due to a head injury. And since he has trouble remembering anything, he tattoos references to things he needs to remember on his body. And now that idea has worked in real life.

Films are able to boil down gigantic concepts into simple ideas so that people can digest them easily. Tattooing a mobile number sounds preposterous out loud, but when you see it in a movie, it seems believable. And now, thanks to Christopher Nolan and Aamir Khan, that very idea has helped a father get his son back.

Representative Cover Image Source