'I was told to stay within my limits'

After setting a shining example himself, Aditya Tiwari now runs a support group for parents with mentally challenged children.

"All I wanted was to adopt a mentally challenged child, what I got for 18 months was mental, emotional and financial trauma. I first saw Avnish, now my son, during a visit to an orphanage in Indore in 2014. The authorities told me he wasn't adopted because he was 'mental'.

It is unfortunate people still describe disorders such as Down's Syndrome like this. I instantly decided I wanted to give the child a home. But adoption was far from easy, I was a single man and 27 years old. I was told the five-month-old child was being given up for international adoption.

I later realised it was a racket; they hadn't registered the child in government records, which is mandatory. I decided to fight this. In the next one year, I made over 30 trips from Pune to Bhopal, wrote numerous letters to everyone, from the prime minister and the women and child welfare minister to the Madhya Pradesh government. People laughed at me, saying I was either impotent or that this was my biological child outside marriage.

Things changed when Maneka Gandhi visited the orphanage. After that, they reviewed my case and I was allowed to adopt the boy. I later found out he had been abandoned by his affluent Bhopal-based parents. It is a pity people see children with challenges as a liability; the mindset needs to change.

This experience has sensitised me further. When I got married last July, instead of inviting family and friends, I organised a feast and gifts for 10,000 underprivileged people, food for animals from shelters, strays and the zoo."