Book conversations: Baby Makers

As infertility levels rise in India, fertility centres are mushrooming all over the country.  Franchises of hi-tech fertility centres, equipped with the best of technologies, and skilled manpower dot the urban landscape.  Cash laden professionals make a beeline for these centres, as no expense is spared in getting their coveted bundle of joy.  Those that are not contented with having a girl child, even opt to go out of the country, or resort to shady deals just to get a male baby, as sex selection is illegal in India.  Some even opt for postponing their motherhood to a later convenient time.   

If the couple remain issue-less even after expensive IVF and related procedures, the last resort options come into the picture.  These include egg harvesting from an unknown woman, and surrogacy - commissioning gestation in a hired woman.  In all this, the option of adopting one of the millions of orphans living in care homes is almost never considered, as nothing less than having one's own flesh and blood in the little one would suffice. 

But what is known about surrogacy?  Is it simply a case of 'commissioning' babies?  As easy as renting a room for nine months?  What happens to the woman who agrees to be a surrogate?  Who are the agents who would arrange surrogacy for you?  How much does it cost?  What are the legal tangles that one could get into in the process?  Ever wondered what ART, GIFT, IUI, ICSI, TESA and ZIFT stand for in the fertility parlance?

These are just a few of the questions that Aravamudan addresses in her book, through touching real life stories of people involved in the surrogacy industry.  Apart from the strong subject of the book - one about which very little information is available - the other winner in this book is the format and the way it is edited.

Aravamudan presents six stories simultaneously; of people from different places across the world - New Jersey, Bangalore, Kathmandu, Mumbai, Anand, and Chennai.  They all have one thing in common: the Indian surrogacy industry.  These are stories of couples commissioning babies, women entering the field to become first time egg donors or surrogates, their managers and recruiters, their families, and their travails. 

The stories are presented in five clusters with five interludes in between.  The interludes look at unconnected real life scenarios of surrogacy gone wrong, questions about legality of the process, differences in international laws, issues of non-biological motherhood, and artificial reproduction without the requirement of the male gamete.  

This structuring of narrative non-fiction with interludes of interesting case scenarios and essays enlivens the narrative, and keeps one hooked on to the book till the very end.  Each of the five stories is presented simply, without going into the unnecessary details of the characters' experiences.  Yet each story is highly engaging, and you can't help getting involved in the characters' affairs and hoping that each one of them goes on to have a happy outcome.

Surrogacy is here to stay and it is high time that clear-cut guidelines and laws are created to reduce the ambiguity, and the air of illegality that surrounds it.  The fact that there are so many foreign nationals coming to India to employ surrogates - despite the lacunae in the guidelines and laws - shows that regularisation and preserving the interests of those involved in the industry is the need of the hour.  

Aravamudan highlights these issues effortlessly in her revealing and charming account.



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