From Bihar to Punjab: How ChatGPT led elderly man home

Under the Punjab government's Mukh Mantri Tirath Yatra scheme, Chaman Lal of Fatehgarh Gujran village in Ludhiana travelled to Amritsar on September 11 to visit the Golden Temple.

A four-day search across state lines ended in an unexpected reunion after an elderly Punjab pilgrim, who disappeared while on a state-sponsored trip to Amritsar, turned up hundreds of kilometres away in Bihar, where a stranger sheltered him and tracked down his family with the help of online searches, reports said on Sunday, September 20.

Under the Punjab government’s Mukh Mantri Tirath Yatra scheme, Chaman Lal of Fatehgarh Gujran village in Ludhiana travelled to Amritsar on September 11 to visit the Golden Temple.

However, he got separated from the group and wandered to Amritsar railway station, his family said. The elderly man has struggled with memory-related issues.

From there, it turns out, Lal boarded a train heading to Bihar and travelled to Gaya, more than 1,200 kilometres from home. In Gaya, Neeraj noticed Lal wandering and asking for food.

According to Neeraj, while Lal could not recall his address, “He could only remember the name of his village, Fatehgarh Gujran.”
Speaking to The Statesman, Neeraj said he took Lal home to stay while he tried to find the elderly man’s village.

Three days of research on ChatGPT

Since Lal was speaking Punjabi, that helped Neeraj narrow down his search to that state. He used ChatGPT and other internet
searches to identify Fatehgarh Gujran as a village near Machhiwara Sahib in Ludhiana.

A three-day search was all it took. Neeraj then accompanied Lal from Gaya to Ludhiana and then to Machhiwara, where he showed his photograph to locals on Saturday.

Local man Master Krishan Lal recognised Lal from a missing-person photograph circulated on social media and contacted his grandson, Sukhchain Singh.

Singh then reached Machhiwara and was reunited with his grandfather. “We searched for him in Amritsar but could not find him. I am extremely thankful to Neeraj for keeping my grandfather safe and bringing him back,” Singh was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, for Neeraj, this isn’t new; the construction sector employee in Gaya has been helping people in distress since his school days. “When I saw him alone at the station, I felt I should help him,” he said.