The Anupama Chandran case in Kerala, which has run like a whodunnit on primetime television, unpicked many a social seam. There is unwed motherhood, missing baby, married lover, ‘honour’-conscious family, conspiratorial relatives, lethargic police and a pair of adoptive parents in the mix. Every cloud has a silver lining—here the hypocrisy exposed at every level can only air festering internal wounds for some necessary healing.
In this day and age to keep a pregnancy secret, to give the baby away for adoption, to lie to the mother about it, to obstruct her search for the baby… all of that reads like a film script. An illicit affair is only about two people, who may or may not be on the same page, but there is nothing iffy or abstract about a child’s arrival. She/he is born as per full-term gestation and needs a care plan in place.
Suddenly there is a new person with own set of immediate and urgent needs. Of course, the parents panicked. Family name was in peril. There was a daughter to be married off and a baby scandal would only derail that. They did what they thought best—made the baby disappear. Traced with difficulty, a legal team will decide who the little boy belongs to. The mother has made a claim, and that is the most important fact in the whole case whichever way you look at it. A woman who could have easily been defeated by the system or scared into silence chose to make a noise for her rightful access to her own baby, her own flesh and blood.
There is no shame, only the truest of honour, in tracking down someone you never wanted to give up in the first place. She went in for delivery in good faith, that the baby, even if hidden for a short duration, will be duly returned to her. That the baby was kidnapped and passed on to this organisation or that was without her knowledge.
Sighs of relief must surely be heaved by many an adopted kid. Foster parents do dread that moment when adopted offsprings get curious about their biological parents. But where the adopted offspring is concerned, they have a lot of psychological adjustment to make in the wake of what they see as a primal rejection. Most adopted children do not know the circumstances of their birth, the reasons they entered a roulette system of paperwork and passing the buck… Just like children who at some point or the other hate their blood parents, these children could now and then yearn for their fairy-tale father and mother, who will descend from the skies one day and explain all.
For all the adults out there who have wondered about their ‘real’ and ‘natural’ parents, however much they love their adoptive parents or guardians, this case brings hope and a new set of questions. It could be a series of unfortunate decisions, silly fate, and a misplaced ‘all for the best’ sentiment that changed the course of their life, most often for the better. Emotional blackmail, family politics and an exaggerated fear of society could be the back story.
If someone put up a stethoscope on the chest of middle-class morality right now, it will only hear the heartbeat of rage against mothballed values.
Shinie Antony
shinieantony@gmail.com
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