Nitu had at least six caregivers during her first four-and-a-half months of life before she “matched” with her adoptive parents, half a dozen strangers with good intentions. There were hospital nurses in Kolkata, ICU nurses at the orphanage, the couple who flew Nitu to the States while she wailed, and then adoption agency workers stateside. Maybe more, she’ll never truly know. Her mere seven-and-a-half-pound body would have tried with all its might to get back to those cherished 96 hours with her mom. Nitu’s body must have writhed during the plane rides and 12 days of travel, longing to return to her mom’s fragrance, warm brown skin, the one she was closest to. She was later told that she screamed, to no avail, the entire trek across the world. Nitu’s most intimate needs weren’t met. Eventually carried off the airplane by another stranger at O’Hare Airport, she was already feeling exhausted, forlorn, and confused. Nitu needed an earthly lineage that wouldn’t come.

When Nitu was a toddler, a journalist wrote an article on her adoptive family, highlighting that her adopted parents said the $7K (in the 1980s) it cost to adopt her was in fact worth the financial effort of bringing Nitu “home.” Later she was referred to as “all eyes,” “beautiful,” “being a better investment than a new family car or new pet,” and “giving a second chance to a third-world.” How was Nitu to live up to these expectations? As she grew up, she tried to live up to these unspoken goals to be an acceptable return on their investment.

One aspect of this investment that was interwoven through the years of her childhood was her beauty. Churchgoers, strangers, friends, and family often commented on Nitu’s beauty. Mom and dad’s response was “Oh yes, thank you. We’re so blessed that God gave us a beautiful girl. We would’ve taken anything they gave us.” They spoke of Nitu’s beauty as if they had a part in it, as if they were responsible for the physical appearance of a baby they had rescued, or, some would say, purchased. Mom did make it her own responsibility to preserve and protect Nitu’s beauty, but it was objectifying, actually. Summers coming home from camp, Nitu would come home with bruises, scrapes, and cuts, as any active adolescent would. Instead of offering nurturing by inquiring about her well-being, her mother’s response was, “Well, you know with your skin color you scar easily. That’s not going to go away! Be more careful!” The worst comment was in late high school, “No one’s going to want to marry you if you have scars all over.”

What a massive blow. It was unfair, unkind, and cruel. Nitu couldn’t uphold these ideals of beauty. Her parents said makeup wasn’t necessary for Nitu. “You’re already beautiful. Why would you waste your money (on expensive makeup)?” Simple efforts of style and hair weren’t encouraged, but rather met with disdain and condescension, because of the natural beauty that Nitu possessed. The reality was quite the opposite. Nitu was frumpy, awkward, mismatched, had terrible haircuts, baggy clothes, and no sense of fashion. It was chaotic and internally miserable.

The late college years hit Nitu like a ton of bricks. She attended a faith-based, extremely conservative college. One week’s chapel series was on the sanctity of life. Nitu wholeheartedly agreed. She heard a woman state, “No woman ever forgets delivering a child.” Nitu realized it was March, the month she came to America 23 years ago, the month she was taken from her birth country and put on a plane with strangers to arrive at a new home. It dawned on her, for the first time, that she hadn’t given much thought to her birth mother. No space was held for Nitu to be curious in a safe way. Any inquiries about her birth mom were met with, “You should be thankful.” Nitu wept on her apartment floor and skipped classes that day. In one sentence, everything changed. Nitu realized she longed for her first family. Surely, her birth mom was longing for her, too. She realized she didn’t care about her (adoptive) mom’s beauty standards.

Nitu moved 1,000 miles away to begin again and make her own narrative. Leaving behind the overly grateful, always happy, never sad, blessed, beautiful, godly, good investment of a daughter she was expected to be.

Nitu, now in her mid-thirties, has learned how to carry grief, loss, abandonment, joy, gratitude, and a heavenly lineage. Being kind to herself, advocating for herself, acknowledging that birthdays and Mother’s Day are simultaneously joyful and shitty. Nitu may weep through a Disney or Pixar movie with her boys because she can’t handle the inaccurate depiction of the loss of a parent or the pursuit of a parent for a child. It’s too much, those emotions are no longer at arms’ length, but she feels them in her bones.

Diwali is underway and Nitu has integrated aspects of that holiday into her family life. She now cooks hit-or-miss Indian dishes, normalizes her adoption as a topic of conversation, and reads books that highlight Indian culture with her sons because representation does matter. Nitu is finally speaking up, roaring you might say. Nitu’s legal name is Joy. Nitu was her first name, given by the ladies from a Kolkata orphanage who cared for her from day four to four months old. Ironically, it means beautiful in Hindi. In efforts to “beautify” herself, Joy has Nitu tattooed on her wrist to remind herself daily to hold space for her story.