An Australian Dream, a Punjabi Promise: One Man’s Search to Bring His Grandfather Home After 89 Years

On a humid morning at the Layalpur Railway Station—now in Pakistan—a young Sikh couple stood divided by a single decision that would shape generations. Mehnga Singh, bright-eyed and ambitious, clutched a train ticket to Calcutta, the first leg of his journey to Australia. His wife, Radh Kaur, holding their six-year-old son Sulakhan by the hand, begged him not to go.

She wanted a life rooted in their village, Simblwala, near Tohana in Punjab. He dreamed of the freedom and opportunity whispered about in the faraway land of Australia. As the train whistled and began to move, he stepped aboard alone. She stood still on the platform, her heart breaking. That was the last time she ever saw him.

The Story That Became a Legacy

Life in Simblwala trudged on. Sulakhan grew up, married, and had three sons—though only one, Baljinder Singh, survived infancy. When Baljinder’s mother died, it was Radh Kaur who raised the boy. Each night, she told him stories—some sacred, some sorrowful. Her voice always softened when she spoke of the husband who had gone to Australia, promising to return.

“He will come back,” she’d whisper, though the years had long taught her otherwise. And little Baljinder, moved by her faith, would always reply, “When I grow up, I’ll bring him home.”

The Boy Who Kept His Word

Radh Kaur died in 1982 without ever knowing what became of her husband. Four years later, in February 1986, Baljinder Singh boarded a plane to Sydney, armed with little more than fragments of memory—a few names, an old postcard signed “C/O Mr. Pigott, Crown Street, Surry Hills,” and his grandmother’s enduring faith.

What began as a personal pilgrimage soon became an obsession that would span two decades. He searched through archives, churches, cemeteries, and consulate offices. He combed records at the National Archives, wrote to government agencies, and spoke to elders in Woolgoolga’s Sikh community. Yet, every lead dissolved into silence. Every letter came back stamped with the same cold words: Not listed.

“I was chasing my grandfather like a headless chook,” Baljinder would later admit.

A Hidden Life in a New Land

Unknown to his family in India, Mehnga Singh had started a new life in Australia under a new name—Charles Singh. Born in 1894, educated to matriculation level, and once employed with the British Railways, he had worked across India, East Africa, and Burma before migrating Down Under in 1920. The Australia he encountered was harsh and lonely, especially for migrants of colour. Like many Indians of his generation, he vanished into anonymity.

The Breakthrough: A File and a Name

In July 2009—eighty-nine years after that fateful day at Layalpur—Baljinder received a letter from the National Archives of Australia. “We believe we have located a file,” it read. The next morning, trembling with hope, he walked into the archives and was handed a ribbon-tied, dust-covered folder.

Inside were yellowed pages documenting the life of Charles Singh. Then came the line that changed everything:
“Wife’s name: Radh Singh. Year of marriage: 1912.”

Baljinder wept openly in the reading room. “Eighty-nine years,” he whispered. “It took eighty-nine years to find him.” His search had finally bridged a gap that had haunted his family for generations. But the joy was bittersweet—his father, Sulakhan, the boy left crying on the platform in 1920, had died just four months earlier.

A Documentary of Discovery

Baljinder’s journey has since been immortalized in the documentary Finding Grandpa, directed by Anita Barar and produced by Cinzia Guaraldi, with historians Len Kenna and Crystal Jordan playing pivotal roles in unearthing Mehnga Singh’s unmarked grave. The film not only resurrects a lost migrant’s story but also serves as a testament to perseverance, love, and the enduring pull of family across continents and time.

The End of a Long Wait

Standing by his grandfather’s grave, Baljinder finally felt a sense of closure. The man who left Punjab in search of a better life had been found—not in flesh, but in memory and record, reclaimed from the silence of history.

And perhaps, somewhere beyond time and distance, a grandmother’s spirit finally found peace—her husband, once lost to the world, brought home at last through the promise of a devoted grandson.