By the time Sunama came to know that her children were alive and well—in July 2006, through the Rollings’ friends—her life had changed. She had married Anwar, had had four children with him and was pregnant with the fifth. “But I could never forget my first two children. It was painful—I knew Imam had sold them to someone but didn’t know whether they were alive or dead,” she said.

So when the Rollings’ friends landed at her doorstep—at a village near Chennai—with a photograph of Akil and Sabila, that was the first time she saw her lost children in nearly 10 years.

“My prayers had been answered. My children were not dead, but instead, were doing well in another country. So when they told me I would get to meet my children, I couldn’t hide my excitement,” she said.

Between the first contact and the eventual reunion, Sunama had given birth to a baby girl, Zeenath, and the families warmed up to each other by sending letters and messages sent through friends. Sunama learned that her son, Akil, was a promising soccer player and that her daughter learnt Bharatnatyam and had two fat mice for pets. “They said they would call me Ammi and call Julia mom.”

The reunion finally took place in March 2007, when the Rollings flew down to India, two months after Sunama gave birth to Zeenath. “I did not know what to tell them. I didn’t understand a word of what they said either. But they are my children,” she said.

... contd.