Dear Pari

Dear Pari is India’s first narrative podcast on adoption, hosted by parents Priya and Rakesh. Dear Pari will take the listeners through their journey of adoption while discussing pertinent issues around it. We will bring to you voices of parents, adoptees and experts on child adoption in India as part of this series.

Episode 1 brings perspectives on how to deal with questions on why you want to adopt and why being patient is important.

Episode 2 will explore the silent and yet loud stigma about adoption. It will also highlight the importance of society embracing positive adoption language as well as role of mass media in stereotyping adoption.

This episode will bring to you an interview with CARA CEO Col Deepak Kumar and will strive to explain to you different laws available for adoption in India and challenges in finding homes for children with special needs and older children.

In this episode, we will bring to you perspectives on shaping the identity of an adoptee and why it is important to have honest and open communication line with children who have been adopted.

This episode brings to you stories of two adoptees and how they dealt with the knowledge of being adopted. In one story, the adoptee was informed about her adoption in an age-appropriate manner by her parents, while in another’s case, the truth about her adoption was revealed to her by someone else.

This episode deals with the one topic that leaves many parents nervous and anxious-the how-to of the disclosure. We continue our discussion with Varsha Swamy, an adoption counselor, and Saras Bhaskar, a well-known adoption counselor. You will also hear from Supriya, a single mother on how she disclosed to her young daughter.

In this part of this episode, we spoke to Arun Dohle, a child rights activist who has unveiled many child trafficking scandals in India and other countries. He explains why and what his issues are with the current system of adoption in India.

In this episode we talk about the tragic case of 3-year-old Sherin Mathews with Shanna Poteet and Reena Bana, child rights advocates and admins of Facebook page Love and Justice for Sherin Saraswati Mathews which had brought together a community of supporters demanding justice for Sherin Mathews.

In this episode we talk to Suganda, who is a prospective single mother who gives us an insight into the unique challenges faced by single parents. And we will end this episode by speaking to an important part of the adoption triad-the birth parent. This episode also features a song titled “Pari" by Laxmi bomb.

In this episode of Dear Pari, we discuss the role of teachers and schools in helping children who have been adopted navigate through the many questions they are asked. Sangita also talks about the importance of honest and open communication with school authorities and teachers alike. 

In this episode, we talk about Non-Resident Indian adoption or NRI adoption. We discuss in detail with Indian Americans Sarayu and Kashyap about the process they followed and how Non-Resident Indians, Overseas Citizen of India or foreign prospective adoptive parents can adopt.

More than 80 percent of parents chose 0-2 years out of the fear of not bonding, missing out on the child's early days, the trauma that the child might have undergone etc. To discuss these apprehensions and to understand why disruptions often take place in older kids in India, our reporter Vaishali spoke to Radha Nagesh,  a member of Karnataka state council for child welfare and a volunteer counselor for over 20 years at Viveka center for emotional support. In her experience as a counselor, she talks about how trauma can be handled, the role of foster care and the need for support from CARA to promote the adoption of older children. For more stories like this, you can listen on www.sunoindia.in (http://www.sunoindia.in/) . Also follow us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/sunoindia.in) , Twitter (https://twitter.com/SunoIndia_in) or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sunoindia.in) .

Children with disabilities and special needs seldom find families in India who adopt them. Within India, only 47 such children were adopted in 2017-18. It a very small number for such a big country, where we have around 25,000 parents waiting for more than 2 years to adopt a child under 2 years of age. Even children with correctable conditions are often ignored in the system. Kalpana Jayashanker and her husband had adopted their daughter when she was 3 years old. Soon after adopting her, they realised that she was vision impaired. We spoke to Kalpana to understand how she navigated through the adoption and special needs landscape.

In this episode, you will hear from Koushumi Chakraborti, a 40-year-old single parent who adopted Shanaya, an intersex child, which means they was born with both reproductive organs and are often mistaken to be "transgender" or "third sex". Activists say that at least 10,000 babies are born intersex in India every year, and awareness is low on the clear distinction between ‘intersex’ and ‘transgender’. This problem is further compounded with the society's pressure to assign a sex to the child at birth and often parents are offered surgery as the only option by doctors who term the same as "corrective procedures". This lack of awareness compounded by the stigma of giving birth to an intersex child also means that some children are abandoned out of fear. It is in this context, this story of Koushumi and Shanaya is important. Koushumi is from Bangalore and is a single mother who is breaking through all stereotypes. Koushumi refers to her child as "they". 

As part of the international adoption awareness month, we spoke with Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) CEO Deepak Kumar to pose him some frequently asked questions by PAPs and Parents who have adopted. Some of these questions have been sourced from PAPs themselves.  We hope this interview answers some if not all questions that you may have.