Rosma (in front, second from left) with her family and friends. Telegraph picture

Guwahati, Sept. 26: Rosma, the 19-year-old girl who had come to the state all the way from Belgium to find her biological mother, today left for Varanasi after a futile but eventful stay in the region.

From the people of Amsoi tea garden who sang for her, to the baby in an orphanage who threw up on her dress, Rosma is taking back memories of the place where it had all began in 1993, when her mother had given her away to the Missionaries of Charity.

“It was a bit disappointing not to find what I came searching for. However, the entire trip was not futile. I met a lot of people, I went to tea gardens, maybe one in which my mother lived or still lives. We came up with no concrete idea, but we are going back with lots of memories,” Rosma said.

Rosma or Roschell De Strooper, along with her family and friends, reached Guwahati on September 14 in search of her biological mother.

Calling the experience as an “un-European” way of travelling, Rosma’s aunt Marianne recounted their stay with a smile. “When we first came here we just had our flight tickets to Delhi and then a connecting flight to Guwahati. We were nine in all and booked our rooms in a hotel in the city. Besides these, we had only the information that her mother’s name is Mary Bara, she worked in a tea garden and given Rosma away to the Missionaries of Charity here,” she said. When Rosma decided to come here in search of her mother, her friends and foster family at Belgium did not let her come alone. “It was an interesting journey. It was very difficult to come here and travel as a tourist. The poverty is so apparent. It is difficult to look at beautiful places when you have to look over hungry people and say ‘wow, a nice location’. We went to a place in Meghalaya from where we could see the Bangladesh border. It was breathtaking, but to reach there we had to cross miles where we met people working in cement factories bare handed,” Marriane added.

But for Rosma, it was her visit to the tea gardens that left a lasting impression on her. “Before coming here, I knew that my mother was from a tea garden. When I visited the gardens, I felt maybe this was the place where I was born. Maybe someone here is my mother,” she said.

Woven in with those memories were also the glimpses of the harsh conditions under which the tea workers worked. “They work under such harsh conditions. I was struck by their poverty and their helplessness and their dependence on the authorities of the tea gardens for everything,” Rosma said.

When news about Rosma’s quest spread, she did get calls about her mother. “It was very difficult. Yesterday, we got a call that there was a woman in Nagaon, a Mary Bara, who had given up her daughter for adoption. But on reaching there we found that her daughter would have been only nine now. We were very disappointed,” she said.

But was she prepared to go back to Belgium without meeting her mother? “I was prepared for the eventuality that I might not be able to find my mother here,” she said.

But her search does not end here. “I am going back to Belgium but that does not mean I will stop looking for my mother. We have made friends here in Bosco Reach Out and we are now counting on their support and network to keep the search on. And I hope someday I will get to know her,” Rosma said.

But it was the tea gardens that won her heart. Ask her about a memorable moment here, she said, “It was at a tea estate in Amsoi. There the people of the tea community sang a very beautiful song for us and it will forever remain with us,” she said.