It is five in the evening when the doorbell rings at Smitha Pethe’s flat in Mumbai. As 43-year-old Pethe walks in, her two-year-old daughter Shravani gets up from the midst of dolls and building blocks to scamper towards her mommy. It is that time of the evening when wearing her floral frocks, she will go for a walk in the park or to feast on candyfloss. It is a routine that Pethe, a single mother who adopted the little girl in October last year, has been doing without fail.

It was a conscious decision by Pethe, director of Mumbai-based Verginia Foods Ltd, to adopt a girl and never marry again. “After my divorce in 1983, I devoted all my time and energy towards my professional life. But, there was also a pressing need to have a family and I didn't want to kill my desire,” she says.

Other than her need to be called “mummy”, what turned her desire into steely determination was the fact that actor Sushmita Sen had adopted daughter Renee five years earlier. Says Pethe: “When Sushmita Sen adopted a girl, I felt I could do it too. I did not even know that a single woman could adopt a child. After Sushmita’s act, I became more confident and knew it was legally possible.”

Pethe is not the only single mother who has decided to rewrite the rules of a fairly conservative society where the traditional family structure is upheld across social strata and celebrated on celluloid.

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