Kolkata :
Thirty three years after she was adopted by Swedish parents and relocated to Stockholm, Rebecca Aditi Sandlert has returned to India for the first time in search of her roots. Born of a Nepali mother and a Bengali father on June 28, 1980, Aditi landed at an orphanage in Kolkata on November 4 when she was not even five months.
Her mother gave her up after she was left with no means to support the child after her husband left her following his family’s opposition to the marriage.
A few months later, in March 1981, Aditi was adopted by a Swedish couple.
She grew up in their care in Stockholm and married a Swedish, David, her childhood sweetheart and boy next-door.
Then late last year, Alva came to her life.
The birth of her daughter was the catalysis to embark on a journey in search of her birth mother that she has been postponing for years.
“Ever since I was a child, I have been confronted with questions about my ‘real’ parents and my ‘real’ country. The searching questions to which I had no answers initially came from classmates in school and continued through college and even when I started to work. Sweden was not a very mixed society in the 1980s and 1990s and I, with my brown skin and black hair, stood out among the predominant white people with blonde hair.
Though I always knew I was adopted as did my brother Fredrick aka Bijoy who was born in Kolkata, I didn’t want to be different from the rest of the kids. As I grew up, there would be phases when I would be very curious about my past and Indian culture and others when I would push the thoughts aside. I knew visiting India was crucial but kept pushing it back till Alva was born. She is Swedish like I am but she looks different as her parentage is half Indian, half Swedish.
She, too, will one day have questions and I want to have the answers,” explained Aditi, who is a qualified social worker at the Stockholm Public Service.
That family friend Sidney Norling, who has been making a documentary on the West’s perception of India and the reality, agreed to accompany her in the journey to the unknown helped. “Since I am adopted, too, I can relate to Aditi.Things crystallized when I discovered that my friend Pam who was also born in India had been adopted from the same orphanage as Aditi. I will be back again in December with Pam and her family as she wants to visit the city of her birth,” said Sidney , who has featured as a villain in two Swedish films and appeared on multiple music videos.
Any hesitation that Aditi may have had about the India trip disappeared when she connected with Bapan Das on Facebook. The Kolkata Police special branch cop hit the headlines after he helped a youth from Bihar who had been lost in Siliguri when he was a child reunited with his folks. “I do social work beyond duty hours and have contacts in Siliguri where I hail from.When Aditi contacted me after reading the news, I immediately agreed to help after work hours,” said Bapan.
Before Aditi arrived, Bapan contacted his friends in Siliguri to trace the nursing home where she was born. They have zeroed in on the facility at Hakimpara, Siliguri, owned by gynecologist KC Mitra. Now 84, the doctor has agreed to offer all help when Aditi reaches Siliguri.
Since reaching Kolkata, Aditi and Sidney have visited the orphanage on Elliot Road that finds mention in the adoption documents of 1981. They learned that the orphanage had moved from El liot Road in 1986 and had become Society for International Child Welfare on Col Biwas Road near Park Circus. The visit to the orphanage led to an interesting information. Aditi was due to be adopted by another Swedish couple. But when they failed to turn up within the requisite time, the current parents who were next in queue got her.
In a letter dated June 28, 1980, Aditi was praised by one Brinda Krishna from the orphanage. “She is a very happy baby and smiles a lot. She responds to us talking to her and wants to be held and cuddled a lot…,” the letter read.
Going ahead, Aditi knows she is following a blind lead and acknowledges that finding her mother will require more than a stroke of luck. “In all likelihood, I won’t find my mother. It is extremely unlikely. I knew it even before I boarded the plane to India. I came here because I didn’t want to one day regret for not trying. I will give my best shot.
Let’s see what happens. But this journey itself is an experience of self-discovery. I am not obsessed with the goal,” she said.
But what if that luck does smile on her and she meets her biological mother? “I want to give her a hug and say a big thank you. I can’t even imagine her trauma when she gave up her five-month-old baby to an orphanage. Having then grown up with doting parents in a country that is not burdened with over-population and poverty, I realize I have had a privileged life. And it was all due to the brave decision of my birth mother,” said Aditi.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / by Subhro Niyogi & Udit Prasanna Mukherji, TNN / November 20th, 2014