I was given up at birth. It might seem strange but, for most of my life, I never thought that affected me. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. I don’t think a younger me could have handled the bundle of emotions — deep grief, joy, excitement, longing — without falling apart.

I was born in India and adopted when I was 1.5 years old. My parents instilled my love of animals; we never had fewer than four cats and a dog living with us. I grew up in Vermont alongside my three other adopted sisters, also from India. Enmeshed in American culture, I developed a deep curiosity about other languages and cultures from a young age. Could this have come from a sense of something missing, because I was adopted?

Four years ago, a desire to uncover this part of my identity began to gnaw at me. I was perplexed. Why would I yearn for a life and people I don’t know? It hit me when I interacted with my 3-year-old niece: I realized there has to be a whole world of memories, attachment and even love locked away in my brain for a family I don’t consciously remember.

I’m a journalist, and I wrote about such complex feelings for an article that was published by The Juggernaut about South Asian adoption:

“Adoption is both intimate and geopolitical. To be adopted often means living with contradictions: you may deeply love your adoptive family and still ache to understand where you came from; you may feel grateful, yet robbed of something you can never fully name.”

I’ve scoured my adoption papers hoping to find clues to my past life in India, but I’ve hit roadblocks. For example, I now realize that not everything in my adoption papers is true. This shocked me, but in speaking with other adoptees, I learned it isn’t uncommon. Adoptees can’t always trust something as seemingly straightforward as the birthdate they’re given.

This process will clearly exceed my capabilities. So I enlisted the help of Arun Dohle and Anjali Pawar. They formed the Adoptee Rights Council to help Indian adoptees find their biological families. Arun explained to me how they’d pursue my case. And he understands this work from his own experience. He was adopted from India by a German couple in the early 1970s. For 17 years, he fought to find his family, ending up in the Supreme Court of India to fight for the right to access his adoption papers. In 2010, he won a landmark judgment. Three months later, he met his birth mother. His partner, Anjali Pawar, is a lawyer, social worker and noted child and women’s activist who was instrumental in pushing forward his case.

All people should have the right to know where they come from, to know a detail as seemingly simple as the sound of their biological mother’s voice. For adopted people, such access is not guaranteed.

I hope, with my search, to find my biological parents, to learn the cultures and the people who shaped my earliest moments as a human. I am both excited and ready to brace myself. I don’t know what I’ll find — if anything. But I know my best chance is with Arun and Anjali and their past success in reuniting Indian adoptees with their birth families.

I would greatly appreciate your help with this momentous personal goal. The cost is significant. But it means I don’t have to bear the expense to fly to India myself for this search, which would likely end up in a dead end, with money wasted. I don’t have local connections, the necessary local languages, nor relationships with orphanages Arun and Anjali do.

Here’s a breakdown of how I would apply your donation:

Search fees: 2,500 Euros/about $2,855 USD

General organizational costs and individual search costs: 200 Euros per month/about $229 USD/month

Bank transfer fees: Estimating about $2 USD - $3 USD per month

My initial goal is 9,870 Euros/about $11,268 USD, which will cover the first three years of costs. If the organization hasn’t found my birth family at that time, I can cancel. I’ll plan to reevaluate before that point and update donors.

I am grateful for any support, no matter how small, you can provide at this time.