Siminder Kaur had spent months staring at the empty bed of her child unable to fill the gnawing hole the sight drilled in her heart. It was only in February 2017 this year that her son was returned to her, but the fear that he can be taken away again is now embedded deep into her.

It was the year 2016, and a lone mother was waging the war for a son who was separated from her when he was 15 months old. What was her biggest mistake? She trusted her husband and relied on her in-laws.

To rebuild her failing marriage, she agreed to leave her son, Anhad, in the care of his grandparents and came back with her husband, Vaneet, to the United States where they were living.  But it was only later that she could understand that the separation was much longer than she could have anticipated.

Blocked from meeting her own son, she left no stone unturned in uniting with him. So read on with caution for here is a mother who battled the world to bring her son back from one continent to another. She may be wounded, but giving up? Heroes may quit, but maa never does.

First of all, accept IWB’s heartiest congratulations on having Anhad in your arms once again!

Thank you! I’ve been smiling so much, that lately, it has become my way of living. Even though I’ve yet to get a divorce from my husband, having Anhad here has sidelined other issues.

How does it feel to see that cute adorable toothy smile again?

I feel blessed! I had lost all hope of ever seeing him again. There have been cases like this where children have been taken from the US to India, and never been returned to the other parent.

I was so afraid that it was going to be my fate as well. I am so happy to have Anhad back in my arms! His presence has given me the strength to face the world.

If you don’t mind, may I know when exactly did your marriage start falling apart?

It was already a strained relationship to start with. I met my husband in 2005 and even before our marriage we had many fights, mainly closer to getting married. But as they say, love is blind. In 2008, as the preparation of our marriage was in progress, his family started creating pressure for dowry, with their unreasonable demands for a lavish wedding and their condition to have it in their hometown. They wanted to be in control of everything which made things very uncomfortable and very difficult for my family and me.

But my blindness persisted, and I pressured my parents into bowing down to their demands. Though I couldn’t see it at that moment, it was the beginning of my unhappiness.

Did it get any better after their demands were met?

One can’t even fathom how difficult the marriage got after that. After getting married, we had returned to U.S.A on the 15th day, and it was there we had our first fight as a married couple. I started to discover that my husband was a short-tempered man. Even the smallest deviation from his wishes would make him lose his calm, and he would be abusive towards me. I can’t say there weren’t any good moments, but they were gravely overshadowed by the constant emotional, physical and financial abuse.

Did the problems somewhat subside with the birth of Anhad in 2015?

No, In fact, it escalated. Our relationship severely deteriorated after Anhad came in our life. While new parents have their disagreements over how to take care of a child, our arguments had turned the simple matter of different parenting styles in a whirlwind of constant fighting.

For the past ten years, I have been a working woman, handling work as well as home responsibilities, yet he would continuously school me on how to be a mother, what Anhad should eat, what spoon I should use for him, etc. But still, I tried my hardest to go along with his controlling nature and follow his ‘rules’ to avoid conflicts.

What rules did he expect you to follow?

In my opinion, he showed a kind of paranoid behavior. He would force me to do things in a certain way. He was obsessively concerned about Anhad’s food intake since I was breastfeeding. According to him, my son wasn’t getting enough milk through direct nursing, so instead of supporting me in that natural process, he started pushing me to pump breast milk in a bottle so he can measure that I was indeed feeding my son well. I breastfed my son for around 14 months, but mostly by exclusively pumping.

He never saw me as his wife or a partner, maybe as a woman who gave birth to his child but never as his wife. And to add to the constant conflict and putting oil in the fire, were his family members who spent about 7 months in the US in two visits they made after Anhad’s birth.

Siminder had completed her 4-year engineering course from Punjab and had been working in Infosys, after marriage she left her job. It was in U.S.A that she completed her Masters in Computer Science that was fully funded by the University and was simultaneously working part-time. She has been working full-time as a Software Developer since 2011.

It seems your relationship with your in-laws didn’t improve either with time.

What they wanted was a subservient, meek, typical bahu who would live to serve them without any question. They had never seen a part of the family and always treated me subservient, giving me lectures that it’s a woman who should sacrifice in a marriage. Especially, my father-in-law, he wouldn’t let go of a single chance to taunt me and humiliate me. Whether it was in the US or when we were in India, he would constantly pass comments and insult my family and me for no rhyme or reason.

Didn’t your mother-in-law ever interfere?

Never. Instead, she advised me on how I should have sacrificed everything to make my husband happy, only then everything would be okay. Kill your independent thoughts and live according to his rules. She never made her son understand, never asked him to show compassion, for once! Instead, many times she instigated him that started a fight between us.

But if your relationship was so tumultuous, why did you leave your son in India?

Things started to spiral and got aggravated last year, and we decided to leave our son with my husbands’ parents in India in Nov 2015 (biggest mistake I ever committed!). Despite our marital issues, I still trusted my husband and could never imagine being separated from my son.

Anhad’s empty room

When my husband proposed that we leave our son in India for a short term, I blatantly refused but he went on and kept persuading me, so in the end, I agreed. I went back to the US with my husband but only to work on our marriage; we mutually decided that we would bring our son back to his home after a few months while we work on resolving our issues.

However, things took a turn for the worse when I kept telling my husband to bring our son back, and he kept on making excuses and buying time. In the end, he blatantly refused. We couldn’t resolve our differences. That’s when I realized that he never had the intention of addressing any issues or bringing back our son; it had been a ploy all along. On Apr 21, 2016, I was homeward bound in a desperate attempt to get my son back; with only one week vacation in hand and a return ticket for my son and me.

You made a Facebook page, a mother’s plight, where you mentioned that even the legal system in India did nothing to help you.

I was outraged at how terribly it had failed a mother. As a mother of a young 2-year-old child, I should have been granted his interim custody in a matter of days when I approached the courts. However, for five months I had been trying desperately to gain access to my son, and what did the courts do? They gave me just dates, one after the other! And in the end, they gave me a date that was to be after six months, without any visitation rights even! They were favoring the grandparents over a natural mother’s rights. The absurdity of the situation wasn’t lost on me.

I returned to the US and filed my divorce case in a local court which, on the very same day, issued an order to my husband to bring my son back to the United States. There was no hassle, no dates, just justice. However, my husband did not comply and challenged the order in Appellate court. My heart sank, and I knew it would take more time now. But, I did not give up and fought and won the appeal. Though the legal system in the US is very robust, it is very expensive, especially if the other party has more money to spend. It becomes harder to get a fair ruling without the help of good lawyers, and lawyers charge by the minute in the US.

Being without your child, I shudder to think of the life you lived without him.

When I think about that time, it still chills me to my core to think that I had almost lost my son. It was the most traumatic thing for a mother not to know where her kid was. I have missed 15 months of his life, and that means losing out on major milestones like him walking for the first time, uttering his very first word. I couldn’t experience any of that. I was just a desperate mother.

Were you able to at least meet him during the entire proceedings?

During the entire ordeal, I was allowed to meet my son on five different occasions, for 2 hours each time. But these meetings were so chaotic, completely sabotaged by my husband and in-laws. They would come in huge numbers, not allowing me to bond with my son. Anhad had stopped recognizing me, in fact, I learned that he was calling his grandparents as ‘mummy’ and ‘papa.’

It hurt me so much. I went from pillar to post, met countless police officers, sought justice from courts. I would break down outside the courtrooms and cry for my baby. I would spend my days talking with Indian authorities and nights talking with the US authorities during the 5-month stay in India.

No matter what, you won the case! That’s the thing to focus on.

I am afraid not. The custody battle is still ongoing. The protracted litigation had completely drained me financially so after my son was returned to me in February this year, I let go of my experienced lawyer and hired an affordable and inexperienced lawyer for my custody case. But she has been unable to present my case properly.

The seasoned lawyers of my husband have objected to my every witness, evidence, and testimony on one legal ground or the other. In a trial held last month, they kept objecting to everything I said, and I could see that my lawyer was not able to deliver but hoped that maybe the prior history of the case might help. But despite that, the court ordered 50-50 parenting time on a temporary basis.

And you’re handling all this along with being a single mother. It must be very challenging.

Challenges are something that everyone faces. But right now, I am very content knowing that my son is okay and with me. The only problem right now is the ongoing custody case and to protect my son’s best interests. I want it to be over so that I can move on in life and give the best possible life to my son.

I just saw Anhad’s picture and my goodness! He is adorable! Why don’t you tell me what the momma-son duo is up to these days?

You know, Anhad is a very social kid. We go out on weekends to zoo, museums, swimming. He loves to be with other kids and, surprisingly, loves going to school too, even though he had never been enrolled in one in India.

Image source

If I can, I spend all my time with him; we read books, go shopping, we recently celebrated Halloween and went together for trick and treating. Some even say that he is the new love of my life. *laughs* And he, to be precise, is my life.

But one-day Anhad is going to have questions about his father, who he was and why isn’t he here.

I don’t want Anhad’s father to be absent from his life. I don’t wish Anhad to grow up without a father, but I can’t be together with my husband again after all this. However, I do want to protect my son’s best interests. I believe that a child does well in life when both his parents are there for him, and Anhad’s father should get visitation rights as per the law and in child’s best interest.

He may have failed you as a husband but how would you describe him as a father?

He never played the part of a primary caregiver. He always relied either on me and later on his mother to look after Anhad. He never shared that fatherly bond with him. And that’s the reason I think that he can’t raise a child for he’s unable to take care of him.

Despite marrying a working woman, he kept insisting that I leave my job and care for Anhad as he didn’t want Anhad to go to daycare or being cared by a nanny. If he was so concerned about Anhad going to a daycare in the US, he could have brought him back, left his job and become a stay-at-home dad, rather than putting conditions on me and asking me to quit my job for Anhad’s return. He didn’t want the child, and neither did he want me to have him. He was fighting with me to let the child be with grandparents, as ridiculous as it may sound.

Even now, in my opinion, he just wants me to give up. I have tried to resolve the dispute outside of court and made genuine efforts to end this nightmare by being reasonable, but none of that has worked with him. In the absence of a court order, after Anhad’s return, I repeatedly offered him supervised visitation, but he did not take me up on any of those offers. Had he been an emotionally connected father, in my opinion, he would have been desperate to see his son and exercised those visitation offers, but it seems like he doesn’t care about the child but is more interested in getting back at me.

What message would you like to share with people who would be willing to help you through these tough times?

I would just say that when the community unites and comes forward to help, it gives such strength to an individual that they get the confidence to face anything. In most cases, what happens is that a person gives up his/her bid for justice due to lack of resources, it is so sad and unfortunate because everyone should get justice. The help from people who understand can be the catalyst that turns things around.

Like last time when people came forward to reunite a mother with her son, I am hoping that this time too, they’ll help me to overcome the future hurdles. Litigation in the US is really expensive, and I am trying to find ways to sustain it. I have launched a fundraiser, and people have already started contributing! I’m seeking additional support so I can protect my son’s best interests.

You’ve faced such atrocities, and yet you stand strong. Hats off to you! What values are you teaching to your son now?

I want him to grow up learning that it is NOT okay to abuse not only women but anyone. I want him to know that it’s not okay to break your promises or anyone’s trust. I don’t want my son to grow up with the same patriarchal values that his father potentially subscribes to. I’ll raise him to be a true gentleman who understands others and has compassion in his heart, someone who would stand up for the right side.

In what ways has this ordeal transformed you?

I have always supported other women, and this incident has only fueled my inner desire to help them even more. Many women have contacted me on similar cases of domestic violence or child abduction asking me to counsel them because my continuous to-and-fro with the legal system has taught me many things. I always encourage them to fight for themselves and to never give up!

Anhad is 3-year-old now, and even though he is back with his mother, the battle is far from over. Siminder still lives with the fear of losing him forever. If her pain resonates within your heart then pass on the compassion and help her by donating to her fundraiser, give her a steady financial backing for the heart of a warrior she already possesses.