THE BUSINESS OF EDUCATION - International Indian

[ FAMILy ]
looking at things. David says, “International
adoption made sense to me in the same way
as environmentalism made sense. Why bring
another child into an already overcrowded
world when there are so many children
out there who need parents? It’s what the
management gurus refer to as a win-win
situation. Adults who want children; children
who need mothers and fathers. What could
be simpler?”
When in the early 90s, David John Lee
was on assignment in India, his wife Loralee
accompanied him, and they shared their dream
with a social worker, their jaws dropping and
their heart stopping in amazement when the lady
said quietly, “Well, it happens that a beautiful
baby girl was left with me last week. Would you
like to see her?” As the prophecy unfolded, what
followed was almost surreal. Loralee describes
her visit to the hospital in Delhi where the
newborn child happened to be:
“My eyes adjust slowly in a cool, unlit
corridor. We are shown into a tiny dark room.
There are maybe six cots arranged against
two walls, with barely enough space to walk
between them. A young nurse wearing a white
sari smiles and I smile back. She bends over one
of the cots and picks up a bundle. As she pulls
the blanket back, I see a mass of curly black
hair and a tiny sleeping face. What happens
next takes me completely by surprise. As I
lean forward slightly, my heart catches in my
chest and I know, absolutely and terrifyingly,
that I would lay down my life for this child.
I have never felt or thought anything like this
before, and it is a sign to me, in the long process
that is to follow, that this child and I are meant
to be together.”
A few hours later, David and Loralee had
become parents. However, they left for Scotland
without their precious child because they had
yet to go through the ‘paperwork’. This took
an “agonizing” 14 months. Thereafter David
flew back to India alone to collect Bina, to take
her to their home in St. Andrews in Scotland.
David explains: “Apart from the people who
ran the local curry house, she was the only
Indian within thirty miles.”
They decided to keep the child’s Indian
name and simply added an English name to
it. Bina became Bina-Ruth. What were their
early days together like?
Loralee remembers: “She was not in very
good health, having arrived with a terrible
cold and running infections in both ears
Rachita-Beth presents flowers to Queen Elizabeth II
(Ultimately the child had to go through
operations to get both ear drums replaced).
It quickly became apparent that she had
never been given solid food, and so didn’t
know how to chew. Neither had she learned
how to cuddle. Although she enjoyed being
held and carried, Bina-Ruth wouldn’t initiate
affection.” However, soon it was as though
Bina-Ruth had always been with David and
Loralee. They say, “We simply couldn’t
imagine life without her.”
Bina-Ruth had big brown eyes and a slightly
bewildered look, and on many occasions
elderly Scots ladies would stop the parents in
the street to coo over their daughter. Almost
every time, what they said was, “What a
wonderful thing you’re doing.”
Though it was meant as a compliment,
David could never understand this reaction. He
says, “We had not embarked on international
adoption as an act of charity. We did not feel as
though we had “rescued” Bina-Ruth. She wasn’t
our adopted orphan; she was just our daughter.”
The final stage – legally adopting the child
– doesn’t happen until the child has been in
the UK for at least twelve months. Prior to
that, the focus is on gaining permission to
bring the child into the country. For this
the adoptive parents need three things: legal
guardianship awarded by an Indian court, an
Indian passport, and an entry visa stamped on
the passport by the nearest British Embassy.
And before you can do any of that, you need
the document without which no adoption
can proceed: the Home Study Report.
Basically, the HSR is a series of visits from
a social worker in the UK, whose task it was
to decide if David and Loralee should be
allowed to become parents. Apart from a
cursory count of the bedrooms in their house,
not much of it was about the home. The items
under the microscope were the parents. David
says wryly, “The irony at the heart of all this is
that couples produce babies of their own every
day without anyone asking if they have the
appropriate skills, opinions or financial means.
It’s not uncommon, then, for adoptive parents
to feel discriminated against.”
But their passion for parenting was so
intense, David and Loralee went through it all
with a stiff upper lip, their love for Bina-Ruth
increasing each day, as hers did for her parents.
Bina Ruth knows her origins and says simply,
“I was born in the state of Uttar Pradesh in
New Delhi. I was going to be living on the
streets of India or even I was going to die
because of infections in my ears but that was
until my mother and father adopted me.” She
became part of an international family that is
spread all over the globe, and she has visited
and met all of her uncles, aunts and cousins;
loves her granny in Canada the most, has
been bridesmaid at Auntie Melanie’s wedding
and is now in College in Lycee in France. Of
the dozens of countries she has been to, Italy,
Greece and Maui are among her favourites.
I love the way she puts the story of her life:
“I started at nothing and discovered I could
become anything.”
Rachita-Beth, adopted from Nagpur some
years later, was totally different from Bina-
Ruth. Her mother Loralee says with a gleam
in her eye, “In every crisis situation we have
faced, my middle daughter could always be
relied upon to be helpful and keep her cool.
Not that she was always sensible and serious.
At her children’s home in Nagpur, they used to
laugh and call her a naughty baby. It was only
when she went to school that we understood
what they’d meant.
Rachita-Beth tells it like it is…
When Rachita-Beth started at Cathedral
School nursery in England at the age of four,
she was tiny. I couldn’t find a uniform to
fit her, even the size three had to be folded
THE INTERNATIONAL INDIAN 71