20 Years On, Bhiwandi Boy Returns From US In Search Of Lost Family

BHIWANDI: When Christopher Huth, a 27-year-old special education teacher and soccer coach in the US, embarked on a journey to India two months ago, it was on a crucial mission: to find his roots, his family in Bhiwandi. For, two decades ago, he lived here with his family, before he was sent off by his mother to an Andhra orphanage, from where he was adopted by a US couple.
 

All that he remembers is that he spent his childhood in Bhiwandi where his two elder brothers, Deepak Mistry and Sagar, worked in textile units. He also recalls that his sister would call him Sai.

Explaining his search for his family, Huth, who lives outside Washington DC, said that since his family was poor, his mother sent him and his sister, Asha, to an ashram in Sandur town of Andhra Pradesh, when he was five and his sister seven. While his sister fled the place within six months, he was adopted by a US couple in 1997, when he was seven. During adoption, his name was given as Praveen Kumar. Later, his name was changed to Christopher.

He said that for the past two months, he along with his three friends from US and one from Delhi has been in India searching for his family. They first went to the Andhra town, where they learnt the orphanage was shut 17 years ago. He met to one of caretakers, but could not get any details about his family.
 

Christopher, who came to Mumbai on Friday, met the local tehsildar and some locals and sought their help in finding his family by showing them photographs from his childhood.