Tracing the roots: Adopted by US couple 30 years ago, youth's search for real mother brings him back to India

Trichy (Tamil Nadu): In 1990, a year-old baby boy from Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu was adopted by a US couple who took him to their country to raise him as their own. As the boy grew up, he started asking his adopted parents about his roots which in turn put him on a yet-to-end search to know and reconnect with his real parents, especially his mother.

Tears roll down the face of Thomas Kumar Johnson, now 32, as his search to ascertain and reclaim his roots has brought him back to India for the fourth time in the last decade. Driven by an intense passion, he is on a pursuit to find his real mother. What for? “Only to hug her and say that I am OK,” he told ETV Bharat. “I want to hug my mother and tell her that I am alive and doing OK. I want to know if she is well and whether I have any brothers or sisters and relatives and know more about my father,” he said.

All through, he was more focused on his real mother, identified as Mary in the adoption documents. It was a social welfare organisation that had facilitated the adoption. “I was born on April 18, 1989, and when I was one year old, I was given in adoption. I have been searching for 10 years and this is the fourth time I am in India. I hope she is OK. Anyone having any information, please share with me,” he pleads as his eyes swell up. Johnson says that reuniting with his roots will make him a "complete person".

He knows he was born Sampath Kumar and that his parents had lived in Mutharasanallur, a suburb of Trichy city in Pudukottai town. Growing up in the countryside of Ohio, he was completely detached from Indian culture and language. While his adopted American mother worked as a scientist cum academic, his father, a software engineer, had passed away in 2008.

His father had encouraged him to find out his roots and even booked flight tickets for Johnson and his half-sister to visit India. Back again in India, Johnson hopes to reunite with his roots. Helping him in this mission is his lawyer, Anjali Pawar of a Pune-based organisation against child trafficking. “At the time of adoption Mary was 21-years-old and now she could be in her early 50s. We have visited Mutharasanallur and a few churches in Pudukottai and got some positive leads. We are hopeful,” she said.