Sunday, August 09, 2009
My baby
I had fathered a child in my heart when I was a child myself. Just the child was conceived many decades’ years later. The conception of the child was during one of my walks to school daily. It was on the street that lived a family who had an infant whose beauty to be ignored, meant you were blind. Such a pretty bundle of joy born into poverty got me questioning the existence of God and I hated God for this, not realizing that in the innocence of my childhood was a message being conveyed to me by God through nature.Years went by and the image of the child never left me, and I watched this infant grow into a child and even more beautiful. Till later as I grew I realized the message by nature was if I could, I should adopt a child. I used to share this desire with near ones which got treated as a child’s fantasy, like childish ambitions of being an astronaut, with mine being to be an actor one day. It was the good fortune and blessing to have gone later into a Salesian Boarding School (Don Bosco’s Matunga) that my calling in life got stronger, a calling to adopt a child. Don Bosco’s is one institution to whom any amount of gratitude I would try to reciprocate it with would stand incomplete and would be dwarfed to the giant contribution of qualities and values imbibed in me. Many a times some of my actions and deeds in life later could have been a shame to the Institution, but the virtue of getting up and forging ahead was the best education I received. An institution where when other Catholic Schools used to teach religion to Catholics and Moral Science and Civics to non-Catholics, here was an institution that taught everyone Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Where we made aware that none of us were Christians or Muslims or Hindus by choice, but we were just born into a family that practiced any of these or other religions. So for us to know another’s religion was as important as knowing our own, which ultimately taught the same principles. One of the strong messages that got instilled into me was religion was not about rituals and narration of prayers, but reaching out and doing good which was not just trying to do some act with verbosity of philanthropy and charity, but something that was a part of your daily life. Not just giving a percentage of your income and feeling you did your bit, that’s it. Similarly prayer not being a visit to a Mosque, temple or Church and done away with. Religion as not a visit to a Doctor, where you just get a spiritual check and feel good you appeased God. Like one priest who taught us about Christianity as not following the teachings of Christ, but being Christ like. In all these teachings I guess nature had its way of teaching and honing my instincts which was sowed in me from my childhood.
I knew my wife eight years before marriage. Surprised despite knowing me for so long she still married me. One of the things that I used to share with her was my desire to adopt. She used to laugh it off saying all these things disappear when you are blessed with a child of your own. Till the day we got married and I still remember during our honeymoon mentioning my desire, which she just brushed off. Providence was kind that we were blessed with a boy in the first year of our marriage, and the coincidence of the child born on my birthday, was the best gift my wife could have given me which also absolved her to give me any gifts for the rest of my life. After the child was born my perseverance in adopting a child grew stronger, and my wife’s irritability to my pestering. I was clear that it was my intention and her decision, because I firmly believed that a child needed a mother more than a father. My message to her was simple; I do not intend to have another child unless it is adopted. Me being a single child myself I did not face any big void in my life, besides in my childhood questioning my parents how come there are so many kids in the neighbor’s house and just me at home. So I was happy having one child.
After about two years, one day my wife agreed to adopt a child. Just not able to believe it, I allowed some months to go and seeing her convinced, I was overjoyed. Kicked my job in Europe and was back in India. Everyone thought I was crazy kicking a job and coming to India as it was just after 9/11 and job markets were bad especially in IT. Determined to have the child I was back home and within a couple of months after landing in a job, the formalities were initiated. I never ever thought that adopting a baby in India would be such an arduous, tedious and painful affair. I used to joking tell people that it was easier making a baby than adopting one. Had reached a point where we decided to give up, till we were shown a baby that was temporarily shortlisted for us. My emotions choked me when I saw the child and all I could ask the Nun was whether they knew when this child was born, and was told that the child was delivered in the Orphanage itself and the date of birth when revealed, my wife and I froze and was dumfounded. The child was born on the same birthday as my son and I. There was no second thought, as we were decided, that come what may, and this gift from God comes home at any cost. She was just 4 months when we saw her and then followed three months of difficult process of formalities which now never seemed a pain but more of a mission to be achieved. She was home when she seven months, and then was the final legal process that took three years to complete, as only Hindus are given the title of parents. All other communities are given the title of ‘legal guardians’, which I was surprised as I thought we lived in a secular country. I was ready to even become a Hindu if need be, should so I not get the title of parent. However after three long years the high court granted us the title of parents and she got equal rights as that of my biological son.
Soon she will be seven years old, from the seven month old babe who we brought home, and people who come think my son is adopted as she rocks the house. Can never thank my son enough who exercises all his patience and never hits back when she sits on his head, as she can be a handful. The love that she fills the house with is something that cannot be expressed. We are now clocking the calendar for August 2010 where she would be India’s youngest girl child black belt, at the age of eight and globally in the art form of martial art she is pursuing.
Despite the disciplinarian I am, she proudly tells people “I am Papa’s baby”……. Yes she is my baby.
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Very rarely does tears come into my eyes when i read something...and this is one among those..... so wonderfully expressed... love to sarah...
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