A quick update before I go stalk someone :)

The highlight today was the South Korean woman and Mrs Anon Brahman who refused to give me an interview.

The Doc was doing tremendous business today morning and by the time she decided to see me I had almost become a part of the red plastic furniture in the waiting room. In my red yellow salwar-kameez I fit right in! I was getting more frantic since I knew a landmine of information was waiting for me in the secret room right behind the wall I was leaning on but no one was letting me in. I saw a blue-eyed tall white man walk in with his (perhaps) NRI wife, a Taiwanese woman and the South Korean with a baby. And then another Korean breezed in. The “international” were turning out to be mighty elusive – they got whisked away into deluxe rooms and AC’d clinics before I could even get up from my chair. I decided to try pouncing on NP when she came out of Secret Room 1… I failed.

I waited like a good Phud Stud for her to call me and by then blue-eyed boy had left with his wife. And the Korean was just about to flee so I ran to her deluxe room. Not too much of gossip on that front. The same old Asians are nurturant stuff.


Oh ya, the other highlight - Mrs Anon Brahman (I add Brahman cos she made sure I got that well in my head that she was no desperate lower caste). She was the first to say “No” to my “Do you want to talk to me” question. She looked a little different from the rest of the surrogates – physically. Looked more Kashmiri than Gujarati. She was scared that any publicity will affect the marriage of her daughter in the future. I gave my usual “I understand and respect your privacy” schpeel but she didn’t relent. But funnily, though she didn’t let me take my tape recorded or diary out, nor did she let me sit down, she ended up talking with me for over an hour!

She was one of the only ones this round who accepted that she felt very queasy doing this and would never want anyone to go through what she has. Most other surrogates have been saying that they don’t think there is anything immoral about surrogacy – and only those who don’t understand the process think badly about it. I am sure many of these surrogates feel queasier about the morality of surrogacy than they verbalize but Ms Anon was the only one to accept it. What was tremendously interesting was the way she distanced herself from the rest of the surrogates by bringing in her caste and her family’s overall good economic standing. “The rest of my family is so well settled and rich that if they wanted they could set up my family in just one day.”

Round trip

Oct 23, 2007


It feels strange to be back. Last year when I went to say my bye byes, The Doc asked me rather bluntly, “You are not going to be back, right?”. I said “No” and believed I was not lying. But here I am, back in the non-ball-scratching belt…exactly one year later. I realize that a lot has changed and the first day is not yet over.

The auto rickshaw man is not sure where ben’s clinic is. I try all the tricks that worked last year “The ‘ben (sister)’ who is on TV” to “the ben who runs the clinic for mothers”. Has her popularity dropped or is it just this driver? The clinic is not packed either. The exterior is still the same – the rubbish heap, the dogs and cows, the sign at the entrance announcing that the clinic does not conduct sex –determining tests and the bigger, flashier (Doc’s) Honda Accord parked outside. The Doc is surprisingly welcoming and waves out a “Hi” through her pink sleeveless dontexactlyknowwhatitwas. The last I remember she was in a rather flashy sari and a big 5 kg gold Sri Krishna (Hindu God) pendant and this new western avatar is intriguing. I wonder if it has anything to do with the Oprah show she is supposedly going to be a part of. We exchange some “Western” pleasantries, setting us apart from the Gujarati speaking nurses and staff and then I am led up to the second floor. The first floor which used to be a hostel for the surrogates has been converted into a high-tech Operation theatre.

The room is lined with 5 beds one next to the other with barely enough space to walk in between. There is nothing else in the room. The earlier single occupancy rooms have been replaced by this dorm-style arrangement. Each of the bed has a pregnant woman resting on it. All of them look up at me curiously. The first bed is occupied by a visibly aging woman. The wrinkles on her face and hands and her red-henna hair make her appear to be more than her claimed age, 42. She is visibly pregnant and tells me it’s her 9th month. Her “party” (the hiring couple), she claims is from America. From my last trip I’ve learnt to take this piece of information with a pinch of salt. According to the surrogates almost everyone is from “America” and is not a Gujarati although very often the records indicate that they are Patels (bonafide Gujaratis) from all parts of the world – often very very far from America (One “non Gujarati, American” party turned out to be a non resident Gujarati from South Africa, for example). *interview details for later.

The new development – or at least new piece of information I get is about the booming business middle women have carved out for themselves in this area. It seems there is a woman who literally goes knocking form one door to the next to convince women to become surrogates. But that’s for the more formal field report. This is meant to be less academic and more ramble. I feel a little disturbed that the surrogates are given such little space and absolutely no privacy. But then as I watch their camaraderie I am less sure of my perspective. Are they perhaps better off lying next to each other, chatting and laughing their bizarre pregnancy away?

The first two interviews last longer that I expected and I am almost at the end of my first recording cassette. As usual I planned badly and didn’t get the whole lot in my backpack. So I resort to a lunch break – all the women demand gota (fried dough with spices) and I run down to get them a pack each while I munch on the more evil looking but less evil tasting dhoka-chaat (baked dough of some kind with raisins and some sweet greenish chutney). While we sip our tea and eat the snacks, an ex-nurse trudges in, very pregnant and tired. I remember her from my last visit but she is playing a totally different role in the play now. After convincing 20 women to be surrogates at the clinic she got convinced herself and decided to take the plunge. The tea-wallah (a young boy) steps in for the payment and mild flirtations start from each bed. I wonder what the boy thinks of these pregnant women all lined up on iron cots, lying around all day with nothing to do except talk to him and each other for entertainment. Maybe I’ll catch hold of him next time he brings me the tea.