"SHIPS THAT PASS—”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 692, 18 June 1929, Page 16

"SHIPS THAT PASS—”

SON AND MOTHER ALMOST MEET FROM FAR-OFF INDIA When the Marama passed the Ulimaroa at sea on Sunday morning a mother and son were near each other, but each throb of the engine widened the distance between them. The mother was an Indian Sikh woman, Mrs. R. Malen, who was a passenger from Sydney to Auckland by the Marama, and the son was Sunda Singh, of Auckland, who was a passenger from Auckland to Sydney by the Ulimaroa. Mr. Singh is an Indian business man of Auckland. A short time ago he sent across to the Punjab, India, and asked his aged mother to join him that he might look after her in her failing years. She sailed from Bombay over a month ago, transhipping to the Marama at Sydney. Mr. Singh left for Sydney to meet her, passing her oh the voyage, because of a mistake in the supposed time of his mother’s arrival. Mrs. Malen can speak no English and had it not been for a European on board who understood her language her story would have gone untold. This morning, on the Marama, she was a forlorn figure—an alien in a strange land, amid strange sights and people. Dressed in a khaki dress with long, baggy trousers, and flowing white headgear she was a quaint visitor. All the time she wept bitterly. She does not know where her son’s people live, nor where she is to go, but it is understood arrangements are being made to get into touch with them.