Guardianship and Legality

We couldn’t legally take Himesh out of the hospital, and no one was willing to do anything about it. We had no death certificate for the father and no way of getting in touch with any relatives or guardians.

The medical social worker at the hospital had been writing to Mr. Modak, a constable at the Sion Police Station, for over a month requesting that the police come to the hospital and write up a report and take custody of the child who at present has no legal, responsible guardian. We weren’t going to drop the child off with his alcoholic and unstable grandmother, who had not once visited him in the two and a half months he had been at the hospital. She may be a relative, but as far as I was concerned, he was not going to be turned over to her. While Himesh did not want anything to do with his grandmother either, that was a decision I took into my own hands. She would probably put him to work and would neglect his education. This was for me an ethically ambiguous but pragmatic decision.

Either way, the report from the police had to be filed. It had to be documented that the father had abandoned Himesh. Since we didn’t have a death certificate for the father, there was no way to really prove that he was dead. If he showed up at Himesh’s ashram tomorrow asking for custody of his son, he should be punished for abandoning his child. The child was now the responsibility of the government.

I had already made three trips to the Sion Police Station and was getting frustrated. No one was coming, and Himesh continued to live in the hospital unsupervised. The police had been utterly neglectful in responding to this case and gave me excuse after excuse. We are understaffed today, please come tomorrow…We don’t have the proper report papers on which everything must be written…

I had had it. This time I brought my digital SLR and started clicking pictures around the station and of the police staff. Much to my delight, this greatly annoyed the police standing outside! I threatened that unless they sent a policeman to file a report the very next day, I’d go to the media. I walked off, fuming.