His last public visit to his native town was in 1979 when he dabbled in films. This was during the shooting of Baje Sehnai Hamara Angana. However, locals claim he had visited Dumraon over one-and-a-half -decade back, albeit clandestinely. “He secretly visited his home to save his family from being divided. Then, he had distributed money (between Rs 2-5) among the children of his locality. He had stayed for a few hours then,” Subhan Khan, who was then a 14-year-old boy, recalled.

Despite his longing for his native town, his association with Dumraon could never become a good chapter in his life. “Main apne paidaish ki jagah ko kiase bhul skata hun. Ji chahata hai ki us jagah ko ek nazar dekh lun,” Khan had once said in 2001 after receiving the Bharat Ratna. He was also fond of singing a folk song from this region: Ehi Matia Mein Bhulail hamar Motia re, Rama (The pearl I am searching for is lost somewhere in this very land)”.

“Main Chhthia pokhara ke pas gilli danda khelta tha. Urdu school mein padhta tha. Bihariji mandir mein Chaita gane ke liye sawa kilo ka laddu milta tha (I used to play Gilli danda near Chhthia Pokhara. I studied in the Urdu School there. Whenever I sang Chaita (a folk song) in Bihariji temple, the priest gave me a laddu weighing 1.25 kg,” Khan had said during a conversation in 2001. He also loved the “Dumraon ka bana mattha aur wahan ki dharti mein paida arhar dal (creamless curd and pulse of) and called it the secret of his health in old age.

... contd.