y name is Monisha. I’m 29 years old and I was brought up in the Netherlands. I was born in a government hospital in Sawantwadi, Maharashtra, in May 1985. My mother was raped when she was young, and as it often happens, she was blamed for bringing it on herself. To avoid the stigma of being an unwed mother, she had to leave her village and stay in a government shelter before she delivered me. A month after I was born, she left me and went back to her village and her family, to never talk of me again.
Advertisement
Together with some other children, I was brought from Sawantwadi to Bal Anand Children’s Home in Mumbai that is run by Sulochana Kalro. At seven months, I was adopted by a couple from the Netherlands. I arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport where my new family was waiting for me with my sister, three years older than me, also adopted from Sawantwadi. My final adoption would happen two years later, but till then, the Bombay High Court had granted them my guardianship.