Bhopal: When a police vehicle pulled up before vegetable vendor Salman Khan’s shop in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal on Saturday, a shiver ran down his spine.
However, the sight of the officer who came out of the vehicle relieved him of all misgivings and fears, according to The Indian Express.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Santosh Patel, posted in Gwalior’s Behat division, was looking for the man who helped him through his difficult days as a poor student.
Patel walked over to Salman Khan first time in the 14 years since they last met, asking ‘ Do you remember me?”.
Khan lost weight but Patel identified from the scar on his lips.
However, Khan had no difficulty identifying the man standing before him, who was once a struggling engineering student in Bhopal.
They hugged each other cementing the bond they forged years ago.
Patel , the first graduate in the family of 120 people in Panna, went to Bhopal to study engineering and afterwards prepared for the MP Public Service Commission exams.
Back then he was hard up and did not have money to buy food when Khan was kind enough to feed him tomatoes and baingan, ‘He has a heart of gold,’ Patel was quoted as saying.
Khan, whose shops sits near Apsara Talkies area of the city, told outlet that he was initially scared when he saw the police van.
‘But when I saw Patel, I found a long lost friend. I sold vegetables to thousands of people – nobody remembers my face, they move on. But Patel came and met me,’ he was quoted as saying.
Khan said he followed Patel on social and was proud of his achievement as a police officer.
‘I never knew he would meet me. He gave me a box of sweets and some cash. He remembers his roots, remembers me. This was a dream come true,’ he reported said.
Both men, now aged 33, first met in 2009-10 when Patel moved out of his village of Devgaon in Panna.
Patel, whose father was a craftsman and his family member are mostly local postmen, studied by the light of a kerosene lamp.
His elder sister, nevertheless got married when she was young, now pursues B.Com inspired by her brother.
Khan comes from a poor family in Bhopal and he has five brothers and three sisters. While his sisters are all married off, his brothers sell vegetables and drive autos.