Chennai: The sobbing mother and stunned son could not understand a word of what they spoke to each other but then, their expressions and responses communicated all that they had, drawn from deep within the heavy hearts. It was a herculean task that 43-year-old David Nielsen of Denmark undertook way back in 2013 to locate hid biological parents “living somewhere in Tamil Nadu”, which has finally borne fruit now in his reunification with the poor family in Chennai after 41 long years. As Dhanalakshmi hugged her son and sobbed, David could only mutter a few words in Danish and a bit of English to console while he himself was overwhelmed.
The Dhanalakshmi-Kaliyamurthy couple living in a tiny rented place in Chennai had decided to give away their two sons to an orphanage in 1976 as the poor family could not take care of the kids. A couple of years later, the orphanage gave away the two boys to two different families in Denmark in adoption. “Dhanalakshmi did not mind as she was content the kids would be well taken care of”, said a relative, recalling the couple subsequently got a son, who is presently working in the Koyambedu vegetable market.
David Nielsen got married to a Danish woman and the couple has two cute boys, twins. Seeing he had features of a Tamil, he began the ambitious search to locate his biological family which led him to a wild goose chase in Thanjavur and surrounding districts in 2013. “At that time, we could not locate the family but were able to procure some papers that showed David had an older brother who was also given in adoption in Denmark. With the details of his foster family, he went back and located Casper Andersen”, says Anjali Pawar, a lawyer focusing on child rights.
Along with Arun Dhole, who was himself an adoptee from Denmark, now leading multiple efforts to reunite the biological families with the adoptees abroad through his Pune-based organization 'Adoptee Rights Council' and the Europe-based 'Against Child Trafficking' (ACT), Anjali has been helping men like David reach their roots.
Since they appeared different, David and Casper went through DNA tests in Denmark to confirm they were indeed from the same parents. David came back to Tamil Nadu in 2017 and again a year later but could not locate his parents. “This is his fourth attempt and we have succeeded”, says Anjali.
“I cannot explain how happy I am. I will return to Denmark on Tuesday and in some time, will come back with my family and if possible, get my brother Carsen too to come”, said David, basking under the adulating care of his biological family.
“It's real tough for the adoptees to track down the biological families. Usually, the adoption centres and orphanages pretend they have lost the documents and cannot locate where a child has been given out in adoption”, says Anjali, revealing she has been on a few such tough nuts to crack.
