{"id":266,"date":"2016-04-13T13:40:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T13:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=266"},"modified":"2016-04-13T13:40:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T13:40:00","slug":"sulbha-surve-mumbai-foster-mother-childrens-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/?p=266","title":{"rendered":"The Mother of 68"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S<\/span>ulbha Surve sits in her small house in Virar, the soundtrack of her suburban home playing around her. There is the incessant chatter of budgies in the living room, her three grandkids are involved in a giggly relay of slap-the-cousin, and the eldest of them, Niranjan, is asking them to keep quiet. The cacophony is completely out of sync with Sulbha\u2019s mellow recollections on this warm June morning.<\/p>\n\n

The 59-year-old Sulbha sits on a threadbare divan in her living room, running her veined hands lovingly over a photo album. It\u2019s an old one, the kind with flowers on the front cover. The plastic has curled at the edges and the photos inside have yellowed with mildew. But for Sulbha, this album is everything. Inside are 10-odd pictures of children of different ages \u2013 infants and toddlers, who she has fostered lovingly over the last two decades, before they found their way to their forever homes. Pictures of the other 58 were washed away in the 2005 Mumbai floods.<\/p>\n\n

With a kindly, wrinkled face and large bottled glasses, Sulbha\u2019s appearance is unremarkable. If you passed her on the road, you wouldn\u2019t know that this fragile lady had come to the rescue of 68 children when they needed it most. You\u2019d write her off as an ordinary woman living an ordinary middle-class life.<\/p>\n\n

And you\u2019d be so wrong.<\/p>\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n

The year was 1994, and Sulbha Surve was bringing up two teenage sons in a modest one-BHK apartment in Malad. One summer afternoon, Sulbha\u2019s younger sister, Shanti*, who worked with the Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption & Child Welfare called her. The NGO, which took in abandoned children and those of single mothers, said that they were over capacity and needed someone to foster a child. For Sulbha, who had grown up taking care of her nine younger siblings, it would hardly be a task. Besides, it was only for a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n\n

As she sat down to discuss the fostering with her husband and sons that evening, she did not know that those two weeks would turn into ten months and that that those ten months would change her life forever.<\/p>\n\n

Sonu was a 15-day-old, severely dehydrated baby. When Sulbha lifted him off his crib at Kelkar Hospital, the child howled in pain. The dehydration had left sores on his back that were beginning to peel off. Sulbha brought him back home and stepped back 13 years in time, to when her elder son was born. It was hourly feeds, nappy changes, constant crying, and sleepless nights all over again.<\/p>\n\n

Two weeks passed. Sonu was getting better and no longer cried as much. The skin on his back had nearly healed and the dehydration was a thing of the past. Sulbha was settling into a routine; she had a little help from her husband and sons, who would take over from her once they returned from work and school.<\/p>\n\n

One afternoon, juggling Sonu\u2019s feed and household chores, Sulbha got another emergency call from IAPA. Deepa\u2019s adoptive parents had returned her to the NGO, because her new mother \u201cdid not like her\u201d. Would Sulbha step in again?<\/p>\n\n

My jaw drops a little when she tells me that it took her just a moment to make her decision. I try very hard to steer clear of judgements, but all I can think is how a suburban housewife, who\u2019d never worked outside the house, didn\u2019t bat an eyelid when it came to such momentous decisions. Homemakers deal with day after day of work that is back-breaking, repetitive, unpaid, and unnoticed, even when they don\u2019t have to raise children \u2013 and Sulbha had agreed to take care of two more little ones. It certainly wasn\u2019t the \u20b9500 stipend that she got from the NGO to cover a child\u2019s expenses. I ask her about this and she just shrugs her slight shoulders. \u201cI was also initially surprised that I was doing it,\u201d she tells me, simultaneously asking the grandchildren to pipe down. \u201cBut I used to think about these children, on their own in this world. They must be so scared without their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Little Deepa who came in that day, was scared too, having suffered the loss of two sets of parents in the one year she had spent in the world. She was timid and introverted, and in the initial days, wouldn\u2019t allow Sulbha or any other female figure within an arm\u2019s distance of her \u2013 a clue into what she must have endured with her adoptive mother. It fell to Sulbha\u2019s husband and sons to take care of her. It was only with time (and observing Sulbha\u2019s interactions with Sonu) that Deepa grew a little closer to her temporary mother.<\/p>\n\n

And then, it was time for both Sonu and Deepa to leave. Deepa\u2019s new home was in America, while Sonu\u2019s was going to be going to Paris. Sulbha shows me an Eiffel Tower postcard, inscribed with the staccato prose of a non-native English speaker, and a picture of Sonu, a bonny little boy who looks nothing like the undernourished child Sulbha first brought home.<\/p>\n\n

Even now, there\u2019s a slight catch in her voice when she talks about him. \u201cIt is terrible to see them go,\u201d she says. \u201cAisa lagta tha ki ye kaam hi nahi karna hai.\u201d Some days, she tells me, she felt like taking the advice of her sceptical neighbours who asked her why she wanted to take care of strange children \u2013 but only because some partings really rent her apart.<\/p>\n\n

Pranav was one of them. He was assigned to Sulbha in an emergency. She still doesn\u2019t know the name of the condition he had, but remembers he\u2019d get about 15-20 seizures in a day. Even as Pranav\u2019s weight ballooned, they discovered that his sight was regressing. He needed constant care and attention, and Sulbha was by his side every minute. After eight months though, Pranav had to be admitted to a hospital, where his condition worsened. Sulbha, unable to get him out of her mind, befriended a nurse at the hospital, who she could call twice a day to check on him. \u201cThen one night, I dreamt about him,\u201d Sulbha tells me. \u201cHe was all grown-up and healthy and good. I was so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n