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Literary Review
The search for a dream child
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The Penguin Guide to Adoption, with its exhaustive appendices, is a source of credible information on adoption. And it doesn't duck controversial dilemmas, says VIJAY NAGASWAMI.
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WHEN Maniratnam's "Kannathil Muthamittal" was released and well received by urban audiences, one assumed that the difficult subject of adoption that had been addressed in the film was a well-entrenched social phenomenon. However, a visit to the leading Indian search engines on the web yields frustratingly little information unless one is a non-resident Indian or a foreigner. What then can resident Indians do for credible information on adoption? Until recently, not very much, but now they have the option of making for the nearest bookstore and procuring a copy of The Penguin Guide to Adoption in India by Dr. Aloma Lobo and Jayapriya Vasudevan.
Conventional wisdom has it that a book should never be judged by its cover, but this one is a worthy exception. The cover is unfussy, sleek and straightforward with clean lines. So is the book. Also, it turns out that the authors have the best possible credentials to write such a book; they are both adoptive parents. Aloma Lobo, a physiologist, is an adoptive parent several times over and has been involved with the placement of abandoned children for over two decades. Jayapriya Vasudevan, a publishing consultant, in an adoptive parent who, with her husband, conducts informal counselling sessions for adoptive parents.
The timing of the book couldn't have been better. In recent times, the subject of adoption has made news headlines more by virtue of scandals associated with it (the Andhra Pradesh adoption racket being a well-documented recent example), than its legitimate merits, a situation that urgently needed to be redressed, particularly for the thousands of couples all over the country who are considering the possibility of adopting a child, only to be bedevilled by the lack of credible information to help make up their minds. The Penguin Guide to Adoption does just this and in fact, goes one step further. Not only does it provide legal and practical guidelines and information, it also addresses the less well-appreciated emotional and psychological aspects of adoption.
The book begins with a wish list put together by adopted children, immediately sensitising the reader to the fact that in the authors' minds, adoption is more than just a procedure. After the briefest of forays into a very fundamental question — Why adopt? — the authors quickly and painlessly take the reader through the procedures involved in the adoption process. The descriptions of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act of 1956 and the Guardianship and Wards Act of 1980 are written with simplicity and clarity that appeal even to the legally challenged. However, in a country where even God gets entangled in bureaucratic red tape, one does get the sneaking suspicion that the adoption procedures and formalities are not as much of a breeze as Lobo and Vasudevan seem to imply. Of course, the point that these are not as labyrinthine as is commonly believed is well made and should come as a source of relief to large numbers of as-yet-undecided adoptive parents.
It is after they get the legalities and procedures behind them that the authors' experience as adoptive parents takes over. They expertly walk us through the different scenarios one may find in the adoption process as well as the issues faced by adopted children during their early years, adolescence and adulthood and offer suggestions, tips and advice that are as practical as they are clever. However, it does appear that the book is focused more on the needs of the child than the parent. The emotional impact and consequences of adoption on the parent at various stages in the child's development have been fleetingly touched upon, but deserve more elaboration. Perhaps, in the next edition! Or, perhaps, now that Lobo and Vasudevan have opened the floodgates, more writing on the subject will emerge sooner than later, covering these and other aspects as well.
One of the most commendable features of the book is that the authors don't duck controversial dilemmas. They are unambiguous that a child needs to be informed about her adoptive status at the earliest opportune moment and that when an adolescent or young adult feels a need to trace the biological parent, the adoptive parent would do better to accept this as something inevitable than feel rejected. The book is peppered with concisely written case studies of actual adoptive situations, which make it an even easier read. Exhaustive appendices with contact details of Indian placement agencies and voluntary coordinating agencies along with specimen application forms will be a boon to those who've decided to go ahead with adopting a child, but are unsure what to do next.
In short, The Penguin Guide to Adoption is a compact, practical, no-frills, and sensitively written book and although your search for a dream child may not end with it, it will certainly tell you how the dream can be realised.
The Penguin Guide to Adoption in India, Dr. Aloma Lobo and Jayapriya Vasudevan, Penguin India, 2002, p.127, Rs. 150.
The writer is a Chennai-based psychotherapist, relationships consultant and author.
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