Gems In the Garbage By Arun Gandhi
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Arun Gandhi recounts his experience rescuing 123 abandoned newborns in Mumbai, highlighting one baby girl, Sonali, who was adopted by a couple in France. After years of separation, Sonali reaches out to Arun seeking her origins, leading to an emotional reconnection between them. Their reunion unfolds during an unexpected visit by Sonali to Edinburgh, where they embrace and strengthen their bond.
Gems In the Garbage By Arun Gandhi
- 1. GEMS IN THE GARBAGE By Arun Gandhi Between 1975 and 1983 my late wife, Sunanda, and I rescued and rehabilitated 123 abandoned new-born babies found on garbage dumps around Mumbai, an Indian megalopolis. Tragically, this is an on-going phenomenon and even today babies are found abandoned on the streets by unwed mothers or her relatives. Why they choose to abandon these babies on garbage heaps is a conundrum I have not been able to resolve. Perhaps, they think the result of an illegitimate relationship is not just an embarrassment but garbage that must be disposed off. Whatever, this is the story of one, scrawny, little baby girl out of the 123, who was later named Sonali, was days old, malnourished, wrapped in a piece of white cotton cloth and left besides a garbage dump in Byculla, a suburb of Mumbai. After rescuing so many finding Sonali no longer shocked me. I called the police and together we took her to the Government Remand Home nearby where the doctor was skeptical about her chances of survival. But, Sonali was a fighter. Within weeks she recovered and reached her normal baby weight. While Sonali was recouping at the Remand Home, we received through a friend a request for a baby from a couple who live in Paris, France. We were a bit skeptical for several reasons: first, the couple was unable to communicate because they knew not a word of English; second, we had decided to keep in touch with the families. However, because of the mutual friend we relented and decided to send Sonali to France after all the legal formalities were done and the Mumbai High Court approved the adoption. Just as we had suspected, we lost contact with them and Sonali. There were no letters, no photographs. Years passed and in 1987 we came to the United States and decided to settle here closing yet another chapter in our myriad life. Sunanda and I soon established the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, now located at the University of Rochester, New York. In February of 2007 Sunanda passed away and in January, 2008 I resigned from the Institute to lead a quieter life. Often in the loneliness of widowed existence I muse over the highlights of our 50 years of wedded life and, of course, the lives of these rescued babies are always on the top of the list. They are now in their early and late 20s, and some write to me to say they named their first-born after Sunanda or me. In this pensive mood I sometimes wondered about the little girl that went to France. Was she happy? What would she be doing?
- 2. Early in July, 2008, I received a call from the Gandhi Institute telling me that a French woman from Paris had left a message asking me to call her back. The name did not ring any bells in my foggy 75 year old mind. I told the Administrator to give her my home number if she calls back. Two days later the Administrator called back: “The French woman has left another message. She sounds desperate.” I had no idea whatsoever that this could be Sonali or her parents. Twenty-six years had passed and rivers of water had flowed under the bridge. Butt, I relented. “Are you the person who gave a baby in adoption to a couple in Paris?” a sweet French voice asked in quaint English. After a moment’s hesitation, I said: “Yes, it was a long time ago.” “Well, I am that girl,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “I want to know who am I? Where do I come from? Who are you? And there are a hundred other questions.” Although I detected a sense of relief that she found the man she was desperately looking for, there was also the suppressed emotions that were threatening to overflow. I tried to answer her questions as best I could. I told her how I had found her and how we had struggled to save her life. “So, I am an Indian from India?” she asked. “Did you not see all the adoption documents we sent to your parents?” I asked. “No,” she said. “They refuse to tell me anything and I found no documents.” She could now hold her tears back no longer. The floodgates had opened and she sobbed on the phone muttering in between: “You have no idea what this means to me. You have given me a new life. I feel so relieved.” Evidently she had struggled to get some answers from her parents but, for some inexplicable reason they decided to lock her past in a vault that they had no intentions of opening. She persisted, threw tantrums, didn’t speak to her parents for weeks, but they refused to budge. In April, 2008, Sonali’s father suffered a heart attack and while he was in hospital Sonali was asked by her mother to sort out his papers. This was when she found a one-page affidavit authorizing me to represent the family in the matter of adoption of their baby. This opened a window to her past. She assumed I was her biological father who gave her in adoption. She spent weeks searching for me in the telephone directories of
- 3. France until some friends told her it might be easier to Google my name. She found a lot of information but no contact number or address. After reading all the information she was still not sure if I was the right person. Then she linked me to the Institute and found the telephone number. We talked for more than an hour and I sensed a calmness descend on her. “Can I call you tomorrow?” “Sure,” I said. This time she wanted to know more about me. “I have seen your photographs on the internet but now I want to meet you in person,” she said. “That is going to be difficult,” I said. “You are in Paris and I am in Rochester, New York. I have no plans of visiting Paris in the near future so you will have to come here.” “Let me check,” she said. “I will call you back in a few days.” What happened next was, what one might call, Divine intervention. The next morning, I received an email invitation to visit Scotland and speak at the Edinburgh Festival and the Scottish Parliament. I would have to be there for the entire first week of August. I quickly accepted the invitation. Two days later when Sonali called to dejectedly convey her inability to fly to the US because of the exorbitant airfares I gave her the good news and invited her to join me in Edinburgh. We decided to meet at my hotel for dinner. When I returned to the hotel after my speech at the Scottish Parliament I found a huge basket of flowers in my room with a card saying “With love from Sonali.” It was touching and intriguing. I still had a couple of hours before meeting her. I rested for a while and fifteen minutes before our appointed time I came down to the lobby. It was a nice evening so I decided to take a walk outside. How will I recognize her? I wondered. As I aimlessly strolled down the street deep in my thoughts my eyes fell on a beautiful, young, dark-haired lady walking toward me. I just stood rooted. Our eyes locked and a voice deep inside me said “This is Sonali.” Involuntarily my arms opened and she ran and we embraced for a long moment. “Thank you, father.” She whispered. I did not know if she was praying or speaking to me. I decided to let it ride. After dinner as we chatted in the lounge she asked: “Will you be my spiritual father?” About The AuthorAbout The AuthorAbout The AuthorAbout The Author: Arun Gandhi is one of nine surviving grandchildren of Mahatma Gandhi. He currently lives in Rochester, New York, and is founder president of the
- 4. Gandhi World-wide Education Institute, Wauconda, Illinois. See: www.gandhiforchildren.org and www.arungandhi.net