Budhwar Peth

Saroo Brierley’s tale, of the search for his native home in India, is well-known to the world. It even spawned an Oscar-nominated film, Lion that chronicled this biographical voyage across the sea, from the shores of Australia to the modest village of Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh. A similar heart-wrenching scenario was witnessed in the city recently, where a Swedish national located her sister in the red-light area of Pune.Swedish national Neha Holmgren was separated from her sister, a sex worker in, about 32 years ago. Neha was 14 months old when she was adopted by a Swedish family from Shreevatsa — an institute to take care of children. She never returned to the country ever since, until recently.About 10 years ago, Neha chanced upon information about her native family, at a child adoption conference she attended in Sweden. The details were shared with her husband and Neha was shown a few documents that had the details of her family and the place she was adopted from.It was not until November last year that Neha’s hunt gathered momentum. Her husband found a woman by the name of Purnima Gosavi, a native of Pune but now a resident of Canada, who turned out to be a common liaison between them.Neha’s husband came across Gosavi on a child adoption forum, where she had mentioned of being a social worker with Shreevatsa in 1986 — the year when Neha was lodged there. Through Gosavi, Neha’s husband got in touch with Seema Waghmode, who runs a non-governmental organisation Kayakalpa in Pune. It aims to improve the lives of sex workers in the city.Gosavi claimed that she was overwhelmed when she was contacted. “The coincidence was so unique that I felt like giving my best to help Neha. Without even meeting, I felt there was a connection between us,” she said, adding, “I asked for all the documents that she had in her possession and shared them with Waghmode. After a lot of groundwork, we found her younger sister, who is a sex worker.”The case reached Waghmode in November 2018. She soon spread the word and tried to reach as many people possible in the network. “We knew a lady called Mary D’Souza who was a friend of their mothers,” she said. After verifying the minutest details, it was learnt that their mother was no more. But, her sister was traced through connections. She had no knowledge about the happenings.“My mother always told that me my elder sister had passed away. That was the only memory and knowledge I was carrying all my life,” she said, adding that she could not help but cry with joy after she knew that her elder sibling was alive and looking for her since a decade.Neha, who works as a nurse, decided to fly down to India once she was found. A 20-minute meeting occurred. “We will go ahead and conduct DNA tests just to be medically correct and then see how we could plan our lives together,” she said.