43 years on, 2 adopted Americans are back ‘home’ to find their roots

AGRA: "Never give up, no, never give up." These lines from the movie 'Lion' ring in the hearts of Stephanie Kripa Cooper-Lewter and Rebecca Nirmala Peacock, two Indian women who were abandoned soon after birth and adopted by US-based couples. More than 40 years later, the two have returned to India in search of their biological parents.

Like Saroo Brierley, the protagonist in the award-winning 'Lion' who gets to meet his biological mother after an agonizing wait of 25 years in Australia, both Kripa and Nirmala, who met on Yahoo in 2007, long to trace their parents back home in India.

bbc Rebecca Nirmala Peacock with her daughter Trisha and husband David Peacock

In the summer of 1975, Kripa was adopted from a Kanpur-based orphanage by a single mother Mariyln Backstrom, hailing from Aitkin in Minnesota. Nirmala was also adopted from the same institution in 1976 by Leonard Jensen and Judi Jensen, a couple from Salt Lake city in Utah.

ccd Stephanie Kripa Cooper-Lewter childhood

Talking to TOI, the women, who are now in Agra, said almost in unison, "We want to trace our roots. We want to meet our parents, talk to them, cry in their arms and know why they left us in that cradle outside the orphanage. We want to know their stories and why they had to give us up."

Nirmala added: "I have been in the US for the last four decades, yet my heart longs for my home in India. My parents have been very supportive in my search for my biological roots." A homemaker settled in Seattle along with her eight-year-old adopted daughter Trisha and graphic designer husband David Peacock, she says she's not one to give up.

"Right from my childhood, I knew that I was an adopted kid as my mother is white and I am not," Kripa said. "Yet, she loved me and took care of me in the best possible way. She even supports me in the search for my biological parents. Now, along with Nirmala, I'm trying to trace them."

Kripa is settled in Charlotte in North Carolina state along with her husband Nicholas Cooper-Lewter and the couple works for the upliftment of underprivileged kids.

The two women have also launched a Facebook campaign, 'Journey with a purpose', to trace their parents with hashtags like#DaughtersOfTheCity, #Quest, #Destiny, #Sisterhood, #LostSarees and #JourneyWithAPurpose. On Friday, they met Kanpur mayor Pramila Pandey and sought assistance in their search.

Before this reporter took leave, Kripa added, "Deep down in my heart, I know that I'll find them and cry like Saroo. I have not given up hope."

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