Madhu's Story

Part 1: From India to Oz

Hi, I'm Madhu and this is my story. I don't have a written history because I wasn't born in a hospital. I was born in a little village by a river, on a blanket in the hut that my family had built. I didn't have a birth certificate or baby photos, and nobody knows how big I was.

When my father left me and my baby brother at a railway station I was about 8 years old, so I remember everything I went through. I felt very sad when I was thinking about why they abandoned me and I used to cry a lot. I used to cry every time I would think about it and it was very hard for me to look after my baby brother.

So when I was taken to an orphanage I didn't have anyone to help me know about myself and my family, and what had happened to us. I had a lot of memories, which I kept thinking about to remember them and to try to work out what had happened to us. I worried about would be my future.

When I was in the orphanage I used to cry but nobody would come and talk to me, so I had to work out all these things by myself. I decided to try to forget about my past and my memories. It worked for a while because I had friends to play with and I would forget about things, but then something would remind me and I would feel sad again.

When I was adopted by my Aussie family I was scared going with them because I thought they would leave me and do the same things that my old parents did, or do something horrible to me. The people in the orphanage didn't really explain who these people were, they just said this was my new family.

My life had to change again when I moved to Australia. I had to learn how to speak English and go to school. When I didn't understand English I used to think people were saying horrible things about me - about what a bad kid I was. I was scared because everyone was a different colour than me and I hadn't seen really white people before. I'd never used a toilet before, or a bath or shower, and I'd never had enough to eat. Now I could get water easily by turning on a tap, and I could fill myself up when I was hungry.

Finding My History

After a while I learned how to speak English. My Mum thought that because I didn't really understand everything that had happened to me, but I had a lot of memories, we should write a story book so that my life would start making some sense to me. Also so that my family would understand about my experiences and so that my baby brother Sadan would know what had happened to us in India.

So we used to sit down at the computer and I would try explaining to Mum some of my memories, and she would write them down for me. Lots of times she didn't really understand because I only had a bit of English and I couldn't think of the right words to tell her. Every few days we wrote the story bit by bit, but sometimes I would get sad when we would write about a sad part. Sometimes I didn't want to write the book, so Mum would ask me to do just a little bit now and then. When we had written a page I would draw a picture on it about that part of my story. I liked doing the pictures more than writing the story, because I didn't have to bother about English and the drawing part was fun.

When we finished the book, people in my family wanted to see it. Mum asked me if they could, to see how I felt about other people reading it and knowing about me. I would tell her if I felt comfortable about that.

I wanted to take my book to school and show it to my teacher because I felt proud about my book and I wanted my teacher to know more about me. After she read it she asked me if she could read it to my class. I said yes. The kids were good about it and nobody teased me about anything. They asked me a lot of questions about my experiences.

My book helped me because I could now get through thinking about my past without feeling sad each time I thought about things. Since we did it I am able to start talking about my birth family without crying.

Sometimes I get nervous talking to people about what has happened to me, about being a child labourer in India and being abandoned, and about everything else that had happened there. My friends want to know about my life, but sometimes I don't really know how to tell them. I let them read my book and ask me questions about my story, and I try explaining so that they understand me better. So I still find my book useful and it means I don't have to think of the right words to tell them.

The Same, But Different

I am still the same kid I was when I was younger. I still don't know how old I am, or when I was born. I still don't have any baby photos, as the youngest photo of me was taken at the police station after I was abandoned. Sometimes I think about what might have happened to my birth parents and brother and sister in India, because I don't know where they are or if they are okay. I know I probably won't get any more answers, but that is okay because I feel happy about myself and I understand more about what has happened to me.

After I was adopted my life became better and has changed a lot. I'm glad it happened because if I stayed in the orphanage my little brother and I would have been split up and I would have been sent somewhere else. Although it was hard getting used to having a new family because everyone was strangers at first, I'm glad about being adopted because I get love and attention instead of feeling miserable and thinking nobody loved me.

Madhu's story: return to india

Expectations

In 1995, when I was maybe 10 years old, I was adopted from an orphanage in India by my Australian family. In November 2001 my Mum and I spent a month touring my homeland. It was nearly 7 years since I was in India and this was my first trip back.

I wanted to go back to India because I wanted to see how India was. Had it changed since I lived there? What would it be like going back there now? And I wanted to experience the culture and lifestyle. I thought I would remember lots of things in India and it would all be familiar but I was wrong.

Before we got to India I was imagining how it was going to feel and what reaction Indians would have when they saw me with my Mum, a white woman. The kids in the orphanage would remember me but what would they think of me? I didn't think much about my birth family because I knew I wouldn't find them or see them again, so it's like I tend to forget about them but I don't mind talking about them when people ask questions. I don't really care how old I am because I've never known, so I didn't expect to find answers to that question on our trip.

Reality

India wasn't the same as I remembered. It all looked new to me because I'm now used to my life in Australia. We travelled heaps far, went through some villages, cities, towns and travelled all over the north part. In the month we were travelling we went from Chennai in the south to Delhi in the north. We saw the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Kama Sutra temples in Khajuraho, and we went down the river Ganges in a boat in Varanasi.

It felt like India had changed a lot because it wasn't the way I remembered it, but I know this is because I've grown up and my perception of things is different now.

I was really looking forward to going back to my orphanage and I was happy that I would see the kids who were there when I was. When we arrived things happened differently to how I imagined. The carers I knew weren't there any longer, and neither were the children I had known, so I was disappointed a bit but still happy to see my orphanage and the few girls and carers who remembered me. Boys have to leave the orphanage when they are about 10 years old so all the older children were girls. There were still nearly 300 children in the orphanage but they weren't doing adoptions now so the children have to stay there.

I knew my way around but everything seemed smaller than I remembered because I had grown up. There were lots of babies sitting in cots and standing. The carers gave them biscuits to stop them crying during our visit. I was worried about the babies and how they were not looked after properly. There were only a few carers who just wiped the babies and were not loving them. The babies looked so sad and weak and skinny. I was sad that the children there won't get adopted. I felt happy going back to visit but I am glad that I'm not there any more.

The best parts of my trip were when I went to the orphanage with Mum and our friends, my new "uncle" Bobby and my new "grandma" - meeting everyone in the tour group we travelled with for the last 2 weeks - visiting an isolated town called Chanderi and a nearby village - staying in a resort in Orchha in really cool, air-conditioned tents with fridges and colour TVs - visiting all the great tourist places like the Taj Mahal - and also meeting lots of nice friendly Indians.

The worst parts were when people followed us everywhere and annoyed me with questions, trying to make us buy things. Also they were pushing and shoving on trains and buses. I found some things boring, like seeing too many temples. When we used transport such as the local bus or jeep I didn't like it either as it was uncomfortable. It was scary to look through the front windscreen at trucks and buses heading straight at us on single-lane roads.

What's Next for Me?

This trip changed the way I felt about India. I found out that things were different to how I remembered them, and India was not all bad. Some parts were bad and need to change, like the poverty and the pollution, but lots of things were great. I learned so much more that I didn't know about my birth country.

I don't think of myself as being different than my white parents because I'm brown or because I am Asian. I'm not ashamed or sad about my past. I'm not disappointed that we didn't find my village or more about my birth family - what I care about is that we tried our best.

All I need to know is that my family loves me, cares for me and having been adopted by my new family makes me happy. I always feel happy because I have tons of friends and family who care about me. I get a very good education and I learn new things every day so I will have many skills for life. I feel that I now belong to both Australia and India. I am very pleased with how I turned out from all that happened to me and there's nothing that I want to change about myself.

My future isn't all planned yet and all I am sure I want to do is travel. I hope some day that I will get to go back to India and see if it has all changed. I can't decide yet what I want to be in life but maybe I will have to just try many things before I find the right one for me.