Catalyst

15th of March is an important day in my calendar and today happens to be that date. Two of my very good friends celebrate their birthday today but apart from that it is also the day I came back to India for good after living abroad for 18 years. The year was 1995. When it was decided in November of 1994 that we were returning to India after my husband’s job contract expired, I was perturbed about our future here. Madras is the city of my birth and the only city I know in India; however I had no clue as to how the two of us would spend our time there. Yes it was just the two of us in Saudi, but there we had a whole circle of friends and every few months saw me pack my bags and travel to India, UK or the US. I was sure that once we are back in India, these frequent trips were practically impossible. Anyway with absolutely no clue as to what lay ahead we arrived on a British Airways flight from Boston via London.

Fourteen years have gone by and indeed they have been very eventful. Life has been a potpourri containing events both big and small. There was joy and sorrow, achievements and disappointments and a collage of other emotions and happenings that makes up the fabric of life. However if I have to point out the biggest event of these fourteen years, there is only one and nothing can even come close to it. That is indeed the arrival of my daughter Sridevi into our lives. This event happened on the 27th of September 1997, which I remember so well was a Saturday. The thought of adoption had crossed both our minds on many occasions however we never had the guts to go ahead and at most times felt we were too old to nurture a baby. One day while I was with my friend Latha Mohan, I told her my feelings on the subject of adoption and as to how wonderful it will be to have a baby. It seemed as if Latha was just waiting to hear this from me. She had it all planned and said that we would be starting the rounds of the various agencies from the next day itself. I wasn’t prepared for this instant action. Having been used to a lackadaisical life style, hoping and wishing for a child was wonderful, but for the wish to turn into a reality was a totally different issue. I tried to procrastinate, but Latha would have nothing of that. So the next day both of us set out by car with me driving (I owe this skill also to Latha for it was she who sat by me in the early days and saw me through some of the worst traffic jams) and visited the co-ordinating agency and got the details. She, I think was more disappointed than me when we got to know that the whole process would take as much a period as gestation (40 weeks). Her thinking was that once we had made up our mind we should go about it at the earliest.

The next day saw Latha calling me early in the morning to inform that she had met a friend who in turn knew of someone else who had recently adopted. She had collected all the details and so the very same day the two of us went to the said place. We were asked to furnish some details by the afternoon as that would expedite the procedure. On reaching home, Latha got Mohan to go to the agency with the required documents. A few more trips were made with Latha in the forefront at every point. When I walked into the house with the baby, it was Latha who did the customary Aarthi for my daughter. She is the God mother to my daughter and without me having mentioned a word to Sridevi of all the prior happenings; she seems to have an intuition. She knows that Latha Ammayi is someone special in her life.
I have heard of catalysts in chemical reactions, but Latha played the role of a catalyst in the biggest event of my life. I am a firm believer of destiny and I feel it was destined that a child would come into my life. However I consider the impetus given by my friend as one of the main causes for me to take the plunge. I may not be exaggerating when I say that I owe a part of this motherhood to her. Much as I have thanked her, I always wanted it to be on record and now this blog has provided me with that platform. May she live a hundred years to bring a smile on many more faces.