The Orphan Keeper

by Camron Wright

  Papathi Iyer was a wealthy woman, by both Indian and American standards. She’d learned English in school decades earlier, and while seldom perfect, she spoke it well enough that the girls could understand.

  “Listen,” she said. “Tell me, what do you hear?”

  The answer was obvious, for drowning out every ambient noise in the courtyard was the clanking of the automated loom.

  Tayjel spoke first. “The weaving machine.” She motioned toward the neighboring building.

  “That is correct, Tayjel. What sound does it make?”

  “It’s loud. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.”

  “Do you know why it makes this noise both day and night?”

  Shaamilee answered this one. “They’re making saris to earn money.” Her dad would be proud.

  “Yes,” Papathi confirmed. “They are making money, but that is not the most important part . . .”

  The woman’s eyes, while aged, hadn’t lost their gleam. “It’s the sound of a young family making their way in the world, working together with hope of a better life.”

  “Does it ever stop?”

  Every crease in Papathi’s lips smiled.

  “Life never stops, child. Even when it’s noisy, unpleasant, painful, it’s still the sound of duty, of love, of family, of laws older than time that help us to ultimately find contentment—to be happy. It’s the sound of our universe. It’s the sound of purpose.”

  Papathi turned her ear toward the clacking.

  “What you hear, my children, is the sound of dharma.”

  Author’s Note

  In telling a story based on true events, a fiction writer needs the freedom to compress time, rearrange dialogue, merge two characters into one, or make any number of changes to improve the story’s arc, plot, pacing, and delivery. As such, this story is labeled a novel. That said, it’s based on the life experience of Taj Rowland (Chellamuthu)—and barring a few of the above-mentioned exceptions, we attempted to follow his account as closely as possible.

  In the years since Taj reconnected with his family in India, he has played an integral role in their lives. His mother there still pinches his cheeks—and always calls him Chellamuthu. His brother, Selvaraj, left his fabric-bleaching business and entered politics. For many years, Selvaraj has been the mayor of his village in India and an important and revered figure in the community. Taj’s father passed away a few years after Taj returned, likely from the long-term effects of his heavy drinking during the time Taj was missing. However, from the day Taj reconnected with his family to the day his father died, the man never returned to the streets. He remained at home as a functioning member of his family.

  Taj and Priya recently built a beautiful new home in India with an amazing view that ironically, to bring his story full circle, overlooks Madukkarai and the location of the orphanage where he stayed as a kidnapped child.

  To this day, despite many family gatherings over the years, Taj’s father-in-law has still not spoken to him in any detail about why he refused to help Taj find his family in India. When writing this story, we didn’t know much about him, other than his having been associated with the orphanage and being converted to Christianity by the orphanage owner. Because of this, we have fictionalized his character and account.

  As noted in the story, the owner of the Lincoln Home for Home­less Children, Eli Manickam, passed away a year or two before Taj returned to locate the orphanage. His name, along with others, has been changed. Because his true intentions and justifications for the events that occurred are not known, we’ve puttied the gaps with presumption.

  However, writing a fictional story based on fact is more than simply filling in holes. There are also times when interesting pieces have to be painfully left out. For example, five years after Taj first arrived in the United States, Linda Rowland received a call that confirmed she was finally getting her long desired daughter—a baby named Ana, adopted from El Salvador. Linda remembers that Taj loved to carry Ana, telling his mother that he knew how to take care of his new sister because he’d helped tend other babies so often in the orphanage. The problem we faced was that Ana’s addition to the Rowland family occurred right in the middle of our ten-year gap—a time in our story when the reader leaves Chellamuthu as a child and doesn’t return until Taj is in high school. In truth, there simply wasn’t a good way to work the addition of Ana into the narrative without disrupting the story’s focus or length.

  Such are the decisions a writer makes, always asking the same echoing question: Will it improve the story? The result is for the reader to judge.

  Regardless, Taj hopes that sharing his experience will help others, not only adopted children from India seeking to connect with their Indian families and heritage, but also children living in remote villages in India, with little hope for a better life.

  To that end, Taj supports charitable organizations that seek to change both individual lives and generations, including Taprish, an NGO in India that serves the underprivileged.

  For added details and insights into Taj Rowland’s story, please visit www.TheOrphanKeeper.com.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the many readers and editors who provided such amazing input and wisdom; Alicyn Wright and Kathy Pliler for patience and faith; and Brad Pelo, for introducing us to Taj and his remarkable story. Thank you, Anne Barker, LIMHP, LCSW, for your thoughts and wording concerning the notion of hide-and-seek and that we all want desperately to be found. Thank you, Christopher Raj, a true Christian, for your insight into India and your lifelong friendship with Taj. Lastly, thank you, Taj and Priya Rowland, for trusting your story to nervous hands and waiting patiently as it came to life.

  Study Guide

  The following questions are intended to stimulate personal thought and group discussion. If you are using them for a book group, we suggest that rather than trying to cover every question, you select a few that feel pertinent to your group.

  1. The book’s dedication reads: To the lost child in all of us, searching for home. Can you relate to the plight of little lost Chellamuthu? In what ways are you also an orphan? In what ways are you an orphan keeper? Who in the story could be called an orphan keeper? Why?

  2. Eli poses the question, “If a child is kidnapped from hell and carried to heaven, should we condemn the kidnapper?” How would you answer? Was Eli saving children by taking them out of poverty and abuse to give them a chance at a better life, or was he condemning them? Is there any justification for his actions?

  3. It’s not unusual in India for kidnapped children to be intentionally maimed and then forced to beg on the streets in order to collect money for those caring for them. It has been argued that giving to these children encourages the practice. If you walked past such a child, would you give or refrain? Why?

  4. When Taj returned to India as an adult, he remembered the orphanage as being three to four hours away from his home. If you were a kidnapped child of seven, would you have been able to gauge the distance so accurately? Why would Taj (Chellamuthu) have perhaps been more mature than the average seven-year-old American?

  5. The Lincoln Home for Homeless Children was established to help poor Indian orphans find new homes. Did it lose its purpose over time? Is greed always destined to push noble aspirations aside? How can the slide to greed be prevented?

  6. Linda quotes The Phoenician Women, by Euripides: “This is slavery, not to speak one’s thought.” How was Chellamuthu enslaved? How do we enslave ourselves in a similar manner?

  7. It was an amazing coincidence that Priya, when first dating Taj, discovered a letter written years earlier by her own father to Fred and Linda Rowland. Later, Taj coincidentally met Vikesh, a child with whom he had played at the orphanage. Later still, as Taj drove past his unrecognizable childhood home, he heard the hacking of coconuts, causing him to stop, listen, and remember. Do you believe in coincidence? Are our
lives guided strictly by chance, or is there something more that might explain these situations?

  8. Linda dreamed that Taj would marry an Indian girl, which he eventually did. How important are dreams in our lives? Can they predict the future? If yes, how is that possible?

  9. When Taj saw Priya’s picture, it was love at first sight, with his instant declaration that he was going to marry her. Do you believe in love at first sight? Is it rational? Why? Why not?

  10. Many Indian parents still arrange the marriages of their children. What might be the benefits of arranged marriage? What might be the drawbacks?

  11. Taj eventually discovered that he was actually from a higher caste than Priya and her family. What do you know about the caste system in India? Why do you suppose it has endured for so many years? How would you respond if you were taught that you could never rise above the duties of your caste? Although we don’t follow a caste system in the United States, do socioeconomic conditions often limit our potential? What other conditions might also be limiting?

  12. When Taj was desperate for help to search for his family, he begged Christopher Raj, a man he’d just met in person the day before, to take time off work, leave his family, and return to Coimbatore to assist. Christopher, with barely a hesitation, jumped on the train for another ten-hour trip to help Taj. Would you have made a similar decision for a virtual stranger? It turned out to be a choice that dramatically changed the course of Christopher’s life (and that of Taj). What lessons can be learned from Christopher’s actions? How careful should we be with our own everyday decisions and how we interact with others?

  13. In the story, Arayi visits with three astrologers. The last one tells her that her son will return, and when he does, he will fly. Although the timing of the visit to this astrologer was presented in the book as having occurred shortly after Chellamuthu was taken (for the sake of pacing and plot), in real life, it occurred years later, about eight months before Taj actually returned. Do you believe there is any validity to astrology? If not, how do you explain the accuracy of the astrologer’s prediction?

  14. What in the story points to the possibility that Chellamuthu’s father sold him to the orphanage? What points to the probability that his father was not involved? Does it matter? Why? Why not?

  15. Taj cherishes his wife and daughters, family he would not have if he had remained in India. That said, he still feels conflicted over having been ripped from his family in India as a child. Should Taj be grateful he was kidnapped, or should he be angry?

  16. In the final pages of the book, Priya talks with Taj about his ­father’s possible involvement in his kidnapping, as well as Taj’s ongoing angst. When Taj confides that sharing his story has helped, she notes that stories are redemptive. Is she right? What parallels can be drawn between redemption and the telling of stories?

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