A parent calls on a stranger in a moment of crisis, sparking a lifelong friendship

This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, from the Hidden Brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.

For two families, it’s a story that has become a legend: a desperate phone call in the middle of the night that culminated decades later with their lives intertwined.

In 1974, Surinder Gupta mov ed to New Orleans to attend medical school. He came with his wife, Shashi, and their baby son, Shaminder. It was a big departure from the life he had built in Baton Rouge, a place he had called home after immigrating from the Punjab region of India in 1963.

In Baton Rouge, Gupta had been rooted in a large and welcoming Indian community. In New Orleans, he was starting from scratch.

One winter night, Shaminder came down with a high fever and around 3 a.m., the family piled into the car to pick up some medicine from a 24-hour pharmacy. When they came out of the store, they were shocked to find that their car was gone; they later discovered it had been towed. The family didn’t have enough money to call a cab and they didn’t know anyone in town. Not knowing what else to do, Gupta found a phone book.

“And I started looking at names called ‘Singh’ and ‘Walia,’ and all of the common names from the state of Punjab,” he recalled.

“As luck would have it, the very first person that answered the phone was this person by the name of Walia. He was from the same region that I was. He spoke the same language. And that was very fortunate for us.“

Gupta told the whole story to the man, whose name was Sukhdev Walia. Even though it was three in the morning and the middle of winter, Walia didn’t hesitate to help.

“He gets in the car and picks us up, he brings us to the apartment,” Gupta said.

The next day, Walia helped Gupta track down his car and drove him to the lot where it had been towed.

“He was a godsend for us at that particular point in time,” said Gupta.

Gupta and Walia, two young men far from the towns where they grew up, had found each other in New Orleans. They both understood what it meant to start over in a new country.

“Immigration to the United States [from India] was not that prevalent [in the early 1960s],” Gupta said.  ”Speaking the same language, eating the same food — the common things that were there between us was just amazing.”

They began spending time together, often going to a local university that screened Indian movies. They quickly became friends, then best friends. Soon, the two families were playing bi-weekly card games, making meals together, and later, taking turns watching each other’s young children.

Within a year, the families had grown inseparable. It felt less like two households and more like one. Then, came a twist no one saw coming.

“[Walia’s] brother happened to have a son. And then we happened to have a daughter at the same time. And their paths kept crossing, back and forth, back and forth, until one day … both of those people [married each other],” Gupta said, smiling.

Today, 50 years after their story began, the connection has come full circle — Walia’s nephew and Gupta’s daughter now have two children of their own.

“So, this is from just looking at a drugstore telephone book,” Gupta said. “It’s like becoming one family unit.”

My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.