Daughter of the Ganges: A Memoir

As a fellow Adoptee who searched for and found my birth family as a teenager nearly 20 years ago, I found this story to be beautifully written, extremely eloquent and touching. It is a heartfelt account of one woman's search for her heritage, family and identity. A must read for anyone touched by adoption.

This is a book about trying to find out about oneself, and Asha Miro is the young woman who is trying to piece together her fragmented past, from her life in India until she was six until the day she returned to India from Spain, in the hope of finding out more about her adoption, her birth family and why they had given her up. This book is actually two books in one, the first being Daughter of the Ganges, which tells of Asha's initial journey back to India to find trace back the steps to her life in a Catholic orphanage, to the second book, Two Faces of the Moon, where she finds a sister she never knew exisited and realises that she has a whole "other" life that needs to be explored in detail. Both books are fascinating, in the first book Asha paints a dour if not too unhappy picture of her life in an Indian orphanage which was run by Catholic nuns, who did their best with little they had for the girls in their charge. The seocond book deals with possible inaccuracies of the first book, Asha has memories of living in a two tiered institution, part orphanage, part school in which rich girls slept on beds and the orphans slept on the floor. However this was denied by some of the nuns, but Asha has clear memories that she does not doubt so we never know who was right and who was wrong but she handles this situation really well and slowly we move toward the meeting of Asha and her sister, also called Asha and the truth about her life before Spain is delicately told, by nuns, friends, and family members. A wonderful book that is far from being sentimental, Asha has no illusions about her life, she is European and cannot give up the trappings of her westernised life but she promises herself she will not forget where she has come from and I would like to think that she keeps that promise, not just for herself but for the faily who lost her and then found her again after so many years.

With the proliferation of books about adoption and adoptees on the market Asha Miro's story of retracing her roots in India will seem familiar. However, what was truly wonderful about this book was Asha's gentle touch. Bitterness does not overtake this book. There is so much love in this book. Usually, nuns in orphanages are portrayed as mean and cruel. Not so in this book. Instead, you find a group of women doing the best they can for Indian orphans with extremely limited resources. Usually, parents who give their children up in other countries are portrayed at best as pitiful and at worst as little more than savages. Definitely not so with this book. Asha meets up with her biological family. It is a joyful reunion. By the time she finishes reconstructing why her family gave her up, and also her biological sister's life, her family feels about as exotic as people down the street. And you understand why they did it. You're rather left with the feeling that you would have done the same in that situation. I found Asha's portrait of her biological sister fascinating, and I kept thinking about it afterward.

This is lovely book about a woman now in her late 30's, adopted at the age of 6 by a Catalan couple, searching for her birth family in India. Very sensitively written, with great respect both for her adoptive parents (entries from her adoptive mother's journal form a part of the book) and her birth parents, about whom she discovers a great deal. A must for all adoptive families and recommended for anyone interested in Indian culture. This book was a huge bestseller in Spain and documentaries and a followup book have also been written by Ms. Miro. I have not read the English version; I hope it does the book justice.