As her three-year ordeal of adoption bears fruit, new mother Mandira Bedi recounts the first day of welcoming daughter Tara into her family.
Mandira Bedi with family
They say when you want something, the universe conspires to help you achieve it. To Mandira Bedi, four-year-old daughter Tara is the manifestation of that long-held belief. On Dussehra, Bedi and husband Rraj Kaushal took to Instagram to introduce their daughter to the world.
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She reveals that Tara joined their family on July 28, but as per adoption protocol, they couldn't share the good news immediately. "When a child comes home, she is considered to be in foster care over the first month, and the family can't make an announcement until all the legalities are completed. But it has been worth the wait.
She has changed our lives; we are back to the world of nursery rhymes," says an elated Bedi.
The bundle of joy hails from Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh. "Earlier, we did a few video calls with her. She would keep asking, 'When are you coming?' In these times of COVID-19, my husband made two trips to Tikamgarh. When he reached the adoption centre, she sat on his lap and said, 'Chalo'. He got her to the Jabalpur airport, where my son [Vir] and I joined them."
The change of environment was initially difficult for Tara — the actor remembers she did not utter a word on her first day. "Now, she has opened up completely. We see her laugh more, play more and chat more."
In their early years of marriage, Kaushal and Bedi had decided to have one biological child, and adopt the other. In 2017, the actor — then in the midst of the adoption process — had told mid-day how the couple's combined biological age wasn't in their favour (Mandira Bedi and Rraj Kaushal in race against time to adopt). But their quiet determination over the past three years has borne fruit. "In the adoption form, you can mention three states you would want your child to be from. We had randomly selected Maharashtra, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Our papers may have been stuck due to that. As soon as we [lifted] the criterion and added some updates, things fell in place quickly. Adoption is a time-consuming process with a lot of paperwork. But the demands are understandable; you have to prove your capability before you take on the responsibility of a child. I wish more people would take the step and give a child the chance to have a nice life."
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