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.

With economic liberalisation bringing a brand new independence for women in the past decade, urban women like Pethe can not only afford to run their households, but also have access to supporting lifestyle structures like home delivery and crèches. It is social independence plus economic empowerment. Rigid marriage structures are gaining flexibility at least in the metros and more and more single women are coming forward to adopt a child.

Explains Jagannath Pati, deputy director and public information officer of the Central Adoption and Resource Agency (CARA), Delhi: “These days parents don't force their daughters to marry early. They are professionally, financially and personally strong, yet they have a tender side to them to love and be loved unconditionally.”

In a patriarchal world, women are doing away with the father figure to create their own version of a family. Adoption centres across the country record a growth in the number of adoption of a girl child by single women. According to Madhuri Abhyankar, director of Pune-based SOFOSH, about 20 single women adopted a girl child in the past two years. “This is a significant increase as compared with 2003-04, when only five or six women came for adoption,” she says. Roxana Kalyanvala, director of Pune-based Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK), too has noticed a similar trend. “In 2004, eight to ten women adopted girls from BSSK, while in 2005 it was 10-12. Each year, it is going up by 5-7 per cent and that is quite significant,” she says. A look at the past decade — 1996-2006 — shows that of the 25 single women who adopted girl children from BSSK, five are NRIs, six foreigners of Indian origin and 14 Indians.

It will not be unfair to say that what has given an impetus to adoption by single women has been adoptions by celebrity single women like Sushmita Sen and Raveena Tandon (who adopted two girls before her marriage).

Take the case of Kolkata-based senior HR consultant Rakhee Khanna. As soon as she heard the news of Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie's adoption of Zahara in 2005, Khanna, 36, went looking for her own daughter. Today, she is happy that she found seven-month-old Nikki. Celebrity adoptions have been in the news lately, with adoptions by the likes of Jolie and Brad Pitt even sparking off a debate in sections of the international media. Some believe that adoption, a serious and lifelong responsibility, is in dander of being treated like the latest fad. But when Sen’s daughter Renee happily grows up in public glare, it gives other Indian women the confidence to put into effect what they had contemplated all along.

Khanna says: “I was touched that an international celebrity adopted a child whose mother died of AIDS.” Though it will take her some more time to complete the formalities for adopting Nikki, Khanna is already on her way to fulfilling the responsibilities as a mother-to-be. “I am trying to curtail my smoking, have starting filling a room with soft toys and am even preparing to go on a long leave to take care of Nikki when she comes home,” she says.

Which is not to say it’s a smooth ride for the less glamorous members of the newly emerging Sushmita Sisterhood. Khanna, for one, did face slight opposition from her parents. “I am so comfortable with my own self that I don't feel the need to marry. But, yes, there were times when I did feel the need to be a mother and the best way to fulfill it was to adopt a child,” she says.

Other than social barriers, often there are legal hassles to contend with. While the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 makes adoption easier across the board, some say it is still difficult for single women due to the bias shown by some members of the judiciary. When Meenu Vadera, a 42-year-old social activist with Delhi-based Aagaz Foundation, decided to adopt six-month-old Aranya six years ago, she had to face many hassles. To begin with, a Bangalore-based NGO refused to let her adopt a girl child, as she was a single woman. When Vadera got the permission, she had to make at least four rounds of the court. “In the court, I had a nasty experience. I had to face a biased judge. Moreover, medical reports showed that I drank and smoked and I had to sign an undertaking that I would never smoke or drink again,” she recalls.

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