For all purposes, Yamini and Bhanu are the parents of four-year-old Pari, who came to their house on June 24. So is Charu, who is the foster parent of six-year-old Chandni who arrived at her house on January 24.
The two children are among the first ones to be fostered after the passage of The Model Guidelines for Foster Care, 2016, by the women and child development ministry and will be with their foster parents till they get reunited with their family or are adopted.
Both Pari and Chandni were born to mentally unstable mothers who reside in homes for the mentally ill in Udaipur.
Both were in orphanages till these foster parents came along and decided to take them home.
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"She calls me mumma and my husband, Papa. I am happy for now but scared of the future. I have to wait for five years so that she can be mine completely," Yamini, who has already bought Pari a new bicycle and heaps of clothes, told PTI over phone from Udaipur.
For 50-year-old Charu, who already has a 10-year-old girl through adoption, fostering was a way of taking out a child from an orphanage and giving her a home.
"I wanted to give a child who could have spent all her adult life in an institute, a home. She is God's gift and I am sure, after five years, she will be mine," says Charu, who works with national carrier Air India.
She says lack of legal rights has been an impediment for her to open a bank account for her child and also to avail AI benefits for family members for Chandni.
However, the cost of rearing the child, his educational as well as medical expenses are borne by the foster parents.
"She is very excited about the fact that she is getting new things every day. We have a big family and she has three aunts and her grandparents and uncle who are showering her with gifts," says Yamini.
Pari, however, misses the orphanage, especially her caretaker, Babu.
She has named a toy in her new house after her caretaker and often calls her mumma 'didi' by mistake. However, it is her foster mother that she clings too when she is hurt, says the doting mother.
Dr Shilpa Mehta, president of Foster Care Society, a non- profit which works to promote foster care across the country, says parents willing to do so much for a child without any rights over her are rare, but are the need of the hour for such children.
"Most of these kids are children of parents who are not stable enough to give their consent for adoption. As a result, they cannot be legally given up for adoption and would have remained in orphanages.