‘After waiting for yrs, even a day matters’
In December 2017, 36-year-old Bengaluru resident Digangana Mukherjee registered with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to adopt a child. After waiting for two years and seven months, Mukherjee and her husband finally adopted their daughter Upolobdhi (meaning realisation) in July 2020, but not without going through trying times owing to the pandemic, which had stretched their waiting period by four months.
The couple were on the verge of getting a match for a baby in the first week of April 2020. But when the lockdown was declared on March 25, they were left with no other choice but to wait. “Four months may sound like a small period of time. But after waiting for years, even one day matters,” said Mukherjee.
Finally, in the first week of July, the couple got their match from an adoption centre in Aurangabad. But due to the sudden spike in Covid-19 cases in Bengaluru, a complete lockdown was declared in the city from July 14 for a week. “We needed to send notarised documents to the agency, but everything was closed. My husband had to hunt for an advocate and beg him to sign the documents,” she recollected.
Their struggle did not end there. As the couple could not find a direct flight amid the lockdown restrictions, the couple left their four-year-old biological son with their close friend during the travel. The duo travelled for 20 hours in their private vehicle and reached Aurangabad via Pune.
On July 28, the couple reached the adoption centre where they met their daughter for the first time. The next day, they appeared at the district court for formalities, following which they decided to rest at a hotel for a day before heading back on July 30. However, the adoption centre did not allow the couple to take their fivemonth-old baby to a hotel out of fear of contracting Covid-19.
“So after completing the court formalities in the afternoon, we rested for three hours at the hotel. By 5pm, we reached the adoption centre and left for Bengaluru with our daughter. We drove the entire night. When one has to go through such hurdles after waiting for years, it does leave a bitter taste in the mouth,” said Mukherjee.
Last week, the Mukherjees again visited Aurangabad to appear at the district court to get the final approval stamp of their adoption. But this time, they did not have to struggle like they did in July 2020.
Six months after the adoption, Mukherjee appreciates her four-month wait. “In March, my daughter was a month old. But as per the rules, only children above the age of two-and-a-half months are given for adoption. So, if we had undergone adoption in March, I would have gotten another baby, not her. Now I think, we were destined to wait to meet my daughter,” she said.
Similar to Mukherjee’s tale is the one of a 37-year-old government employee from Khar who waited for nine months to adopt his nephew. In 2017, the boy, now aged seven, lost both his parents in an accident, and was living with his paternal uncle since then. In 2018, the uncle applied to CARA for the adoption process, but it went haywire due to some technical issues. In January 2020, they filed a petition at the high court for ‘within family’ adoption. It generally takes two-three months for the completion of the process, but the pandemic stretched their waiting period for almost nine months. “Just when we were about to get the process done in March, the pandemic hit,” he said. On January 14, 2021, the court approved the adoption petition.