Abandoned, adopted, abused: Will 'Rakhi' meet her parents?

She was found abandoned at Lucknow’s Charbagh railway station in 2000. She was then adopted and taken to the US by a woman who turned out to be an abusive adoptive parent. Now, she’s back in India to try and find her biological parents.Mahogany Emberkai was originally named Rakhi. She was found abandoned at Lucknow's Charbagh railway station in 2000 at the age of three. She was transferred to a local shelter where she lived for the next two years. Things seemed to have changed for the better when she was adopted by Carol Brand, a resident of Minnesota in the US. But Emberkai says her mother had adopted her using a fake profile, was abusive, and turned her out of her house in her teens. ‘She was never fit to be a parent’Emberkai says her foster mother came to India after friends and family suggested that she adopt a child. "Carol was never fit to be a parent, let alone being a foster parent," says Emberkai. She says that Brand had submitted a fake profile for the adoption and was addicted to drugs and alcohol."As a child I have suffered verbal, physical, mental and even sexual abuse. She (Carol) was a fraud investigator in the health insurance sector in Minnesota, but faked her profile to adopt me,” says Emberkai.She says due to her foster mother’s nature, none of her classmates dared to console her. medium104035584“As a kid, I was very afraid of her and never complained about her behaviour. Although I did try to inform her sister Nancy, I hardly got any support," says the 26-year-old.Emberkai says she became a babysitter at the age of 12 to earn enough to pay rent to live with Brand. "After I turned 18, Carol forced me out of the house and I started living on the university campus," says Emberkai. She says she changed her name from Rakhi to Mahogany Emberkai at the age of 20. She picked Mahogany since it’s the name of the reddish-brown hardwood tree known for its resilience. Emberkai was derived from the word ember.Emberkai says she wanted to become a doctor but after receiving no support from her foster mother, pursued and graduated in health science from University of Minnesota.The search for clues in LucknowIn 2016, Brand died by suicide. Emberkai says she found a paper among her foster mother's belongings that showed she had been adopted from Lucknow in 2002. However, the US agency that shared her adoptive mother’s profile with Indian agencies to enable her adoption is no longer in existence.Emberkai says she’s presently working as a full-time cafe manager in Minnesota and as a part-time model. After her discovery that she had been adopted from Lucknow, she landed in Lucknow with the help of a photographer friend identified only as Christopher. "I visited Lilawati Bal Griha, from where I was adopted, and the Government Railway Police station at Charbagh which rescued me from the railway station, but there was no record available,” she says. medium nocaption103968089The UP Council for Child Welfare was only able to show her papers of her adoption in 2002 by Brand. "Documents revealed that there was a tag on the frock I was wearing on the day I was rescued from Charbagh and it mentioned Rakhi. Apart from this information, there is no record to show whether the investigation to find my parents went any further,” she says. Her friend Christopher told TOI that he met Emberkai around seven years back when she was homeless. “She is a very strong woman and is determined to find her roots,” he says. Emberkai is hoping to meet her biological parents before she leaves for home in the first week of October. While she’s had no luck on that front, the TOI report about her life resulted in her meeting the woman who says she named her Rakhi.Meeting the house mother Sunita Nigam had spent two decades looking after destitute and differently-abled children at the Lilawati Bal Griha in Aishbagh. She took care of over 400 children between January 1994 and April 2014 as superintendent and house mother of the orphanage that had multiple prominent trustees. Romello Malviya, the son of trustee Daya Rani Malviya, told Sunita about the TOI report on Emberkai. Nigam says she immediately identified the child named Rakhi. The septuagenarian says she remembers naming the child, as well as donating blood for her surgery. “Back in November 2000 when Rakhi was recovered from Charbagh railway station by GRP, she was very ill. We admitted her to KGMU under Dr Ashish Vakul, who was senior surgeon in the paediatric department. “He performed colostomy surgery and for more than 10-days, she was kept in the hospital. There she was administered two units of blood,” says Nigam. medium104035298Nigam says that after Emberkai’s adoption they received multiple reports to indicate that she was doing well. “I feel sorry for Rakhi that Carol Brand turned out to be a nasty human being,” she says. On September 27, Emberkai and her friend reached the two-storied residence of Nigam in the Shakti Nagar area of the city. “My daughter has returned,” exclaimed Sunita as she greeted Mahogany with open arms.In an exchange facilitated by the TOI reporter due to the language barrier, the two women exchanged phone numbers. Emberkai also gave Nigam her address and sought the recipe of the vegetarian kebabs served to her.“Meeting Sunita is the best thing of my journey in search of roots. She is no less than a mother. Just knowing that her blood is flowing in my veins is overwhelming. “I will keep on searching for my biological parents, but will always be in touch with Sunita,” says Mahogany, who is in Lucknow till the first week of October.