Snap Studios After saying that they are willing to go to the fortress road before they can push the scroll or before they can join the family carpool or bring birthday cupcakes to the PTA meeting And today in Snap Judgment, we are following the story of one family and how the very thing which so many of us take for granted can be the hardest fight of their lives We are calling it, the search for Noday Mapura My name is Lynn Washington, and yes, it's alright if you hug your babies a little bit longer than normal Your listening to Snap Judgment now we start with a story about the search for someone's past about who she really is but snaps this tale takes some turns like you have never heard before buckle up snapchat so just so i have it for the record tell me in the full sentence your name your age what you do sure my name is anna porva green i am 20 years old and right now i'm currently a student at new college of florida and anna porva what did you know about how you were adopted like what did you know about your adoption story when you were a kid i can say i didn't know that much honestly and part of that was me because i didn't ask a lot of questions i knew i was born in india and i knew i was from hyderabad i knew i was given up at a young age and i knew that i lived in a few different orphanages and that was all i thought i needed to know when i was younger because there were bigger things from you think about like you know addition and subtraction and you know how to carry your tubes i did think about my biological family from time to time but they were just kind of blurry visions in the back of my mind and i was comfortable to let them stay there until i turned 14 what changed that 14 what happened right um one of my friends and i we were exchanging secrets over the phone and my secret to them was i've been thinking a lot about my hands because i have very large hands and very long fingers that are much bigger than my mom's and much bigger than my sister's and i started thinking about whose hands do i have who do i look like i uh got off the phone with my friend and took a day and then i went downstairs to my mom and i asked her do you have pictures of them she had them under a little file that said hyderabad pictures and i now have that same file saved on my own computer titled hyderabad pictures i was uh scared to see them and i remember just kind of trying to hold myself together so the first one that she showed me were of two sisters and a brother i saved my biological parents for last because that was the care for me so they're standing and they're in this hut and they're looking straight on at the camera and they're not smiling i remember thinking huh are they happy so i imagine you look at your bio mom yes can you tell me about that yes that was so much and i actually remember thinking this is my biological mother but my mom is right here i didn't know if i my mom would be jealous or resentful or angry or just have some sort of emotion that would cause her pain so i just kind of thought to myself i'm gonna wait until i'm in my room and alone to cry really so it was hard but um what was it like watching me see the pictures well i remember watching you weep but it was a very steady stream of tears quietly coming down your face i mean it was that deep soulful quiet weeping and i remember that moment at the kitchen table honey um i wanted you to be okay and uh i remember you're going to your room after that and now in this moment it sounds like you went to your room and really cried yes yeah i mean everything changed you know i've been referring to them my biological family as kind of blurry visions all of a sudden it was like they became so clear in my mind it was like you know putting on your glasses or your contacts they were no longer in the recesses anymore but seeing the life that i've had and then seeing those pictures made me wonder and doubt if i was okay to be living the life that i am so adding all of that to hearing the rest of the story such as you know the kingpin situation and the death threats and menaka gandhi well i i just sobbed because you know how does a 14 year old handle all of that you know i handled it by crying and eating lots of chocolate it still strikes me and struck me then just like why i was the one that was given up why was it me was there something wrong with me that they didn't want me okay danielle can you hear me yes okay we'll get right into it for years danielle green had been anticipating the moment her daughter anna porva would come down those stairs asking about her biological parents but she was still surprised caught off guard you know she's never asked me any of these questions but my concerns were more about i didn't want to overwhelm and flood her with information and over the following weeks and months when anna porva came to her wanting to know more and more about her adoption danielle avoided one question in particular and i avoided until recently not necessarily proud of it but once i knew that i was going to tell this story nancy i knew i had to tell her i needed to make sure she knew everything first the story begins over 20 years ago danielle had a lot going on at the time she was 40 she was a student in grad school i was a single mom and i had one donor inseminated child and when her daughter had me turned two danielle decided she was ready to have another i simply wanted another child and i was surprised that i couldn't get an american child the adoption agency had encouraged her to adopt from abroad because in the u.s a woman like danielle would have to wait years single moms were not seen as desirable candidates to offer children homes of course the international adoption process was no less arduous when you have strangers going in and out of your home to make sure that you look like you're the same person you don't have fetishes asking you many questions would you be willing to adopt a child like this or like that you know questioning that over and over to make sure you really know yourself well months of paperwork and home visits turned into three years of waiting and then one day the phone call finally came a three and a half month old baby girl was available for adoption in india when i got a picture of her and then they sent a very poor grainy black and white video of her in the orphanage and i saw her move and cry and smile it was like i walked around with this sense of pregnancy that i was expecting another baby and it was going to be as random mystery as giving birth with all the similar things of not knowing you know who your child is i had even a clearer sense because i got to see a picture of her move and i just i just couldn't wait to be with her the picture the agency had mailed out was a black and white photocopy of a polaroid of the baby girl i looked at that picture every day i held that picture as i went shopping for items and getting the nursery ready talking to my older daughter who at that point you know was in kindergarten and talking to her about the baby sister that was coming danielle knew only a few details about the baby at this point the same details anna porvin knew growing up that she was freely relinquished when she was a month old that she came from a rural nomadic tribe and in the adoption papers danielle had received the baby was referred to as no name apurva i was really just sinking into the reality that this had been about three years in the making and now it was here in march of 1999 danielle and hadley along with two family friends landed in hyderabad a large city in southern india from there the plan was pretty straightforward a social worker would meet them at the airport get them settled into their hotel and the next day arranged for danielle to go to the orphanage to meet her baby and the social worker did not show up to meet us and i wasn't particularly concerned maybe there just been some kind of mix-up we got a taxi and went to the hotel and that's when so much began to happen that really led to the making of the story we checked into the hotel we're trailing our luggage down the hallway i remember unlocking the hotel room door and as we opened the door the phone rang and i answered the phone the social worker introduced himself and was whispering and blurted out is this danielle green and i said yes he said i'm i'm so sorry i'm sorry i couldn't meet you and explain everything in person but i want you to go down to the lobby and get a paper and read about what's happening and then quietly and immediately get out of this country just leave and he hung up i remember sinking down into a chair by the phone and hadley looking at me and my friend said that my face had gone completely pale i rushed out the door went down to the lobby and looked for the row of newspapers danielle grabbed the first newspaper she saw in english she hurried back to the room and locked the door behind her but before she could sit down to read there was a knock on the door i answered the door and was met by two police officers a hotel guard and flashing camera lights of the press all i remember is feeling completely overwhelmed still exhausted from travel and hearing a blast of questions from particularly one of the men why are you here what are you going to do with this baby what are your plans where did you think you'd be taking her are you going to keep her yourself is she going to be domestic help are you going to raise her in servitude or are you interested in the other services and there was really no time to understand and process before another spray of questions would come flooding and one police officer looked at hadley and said what is her problem is she sick which organ does she need if this is a bona fide family where is your husband and they kept saying are you working alone are you working alone and i just stood there shaking my head i just don't know what you mean i don't know what you're talking about one officer pushed past danielle and started searching the room you know we just arrived we hadn't even opened a suitcase yet and so they didn't see anything and when the question stopped they just said they would be in touch and then eventually left well except for one officer who remained standing outside the door i mean the whole thing was at this stage so baffling after they left i waited for a while and started reading the paper i remember seeing some kind of a headline that said something about baby buying and selling sting was successful the story talked about the recent takedown of two high-profile men who each ran an orphanage in hyderabad and i went back to the lobby to see if i could find other english-speaking newspapers and saw that there were more articles and pictures of these men being arrested the men were accused of sending out fake social workers to convince poor women in hyderabad to sell them their female babies babies that they would in turn quote export abroad to childless couples in europe and the united states and then they talked about a woman a social worker who worked for the orphanage and these men who had been caught buying a lambada baby and the police had arrested her right then and that led to the successful sting operation a sting operation carried out right before danielle's plane touched down in india one newspaper reported that over 200 children were rescued almost all of them were female babies from a rural nomadic tribe called the lambada and these lambada children were preferred because of their fair skin and sharp features i then sat down in the room and began to gather myself and realized that the names of these men were the names written on the documents of my child's adoption papers and here i was adopting a lambada child from the orphanage where all of this had taken place i just thought well this will get straightened out i just assumed that i would be cleared but in the meantime where is my daughter at that point how do you not start questioning more things about it like that the baby that you were adopting is possibly purchased i think that's a valid question there was such a shock factor in part being naive american in part because i contacted my adoption agency back in the state i said is there any chance this child was purchased they said no we really do a very thorough investigation there's no reason to believe that this particular child was ever in the situation to have been purchased and i i chose to believe them even though she was in the orphanage linked to the people that were trafficking babies um i did nancy i did you know i'm embarrassed to say it but to be honest i just did and i was worried as of where she was so a lot of my energy at this point was really about how i was going to get her and i needed to find out where she was in return danielle begins her search for anna porva when snap judgment continues stay tuned welcome back to snap judgment when last we left danielle green had just arrived in india only to discover that the baby she was there to adopt had been rescued from an orphanage tied to a child trafficking ring the newspapers also the newspapers also said that the two orphanages linked to the scandal recorded office crime scenes and the children transferred to a secret government building. I didn't know what to do so I thought what would I do if I were in the U.S.? Danielle started calling every local government official referenced in the newspapers. No one would take her calls.
And I was just desperate so I showed up at their door and talked their secretaries into letting me speak with them. And she got FaceTime with three officials. All three people said the same things. One is this is an election year.
I am not getting close to the scandal. I don't even want you saying anything about being here. Two, I don't even know if your daughter is living at this point because we are receiving word and a lot of these infants are getting very sick and some are dying. And then Danielle went to the U.S.
Embassy. And when I asked them is there anything concretely you could do or is there someone who could come here and help me or is there any contacts you have here they said to me that right now given the negotiations with Pakistan we are not in a position to ask for any favors from local officials. And I remember very clearly this one official saying to me you're in a very high risk situation. A smart thing to do would be to leave the country.
You also need to know if you choose to leave the country without your daughter you will never see her. You'll never get her. And I remember the power of those words. I said well what do you mean?
Why wouldn't I be able to find her? And they said there are so many basements of government buildings filled with handwritten notes in files of numbers of females who are lost in the system that you will never again track her down. It will be impossible. No one ever has.
I can still see that man's face standing up looking down at me saying that. And I knew hearing that that I wasn't leaving without my daughter. What Danielle didn't know was that by staying in the country she was walking into a perfect storm. For one there was a question of her involvement in what one local newspaper called the infant smuggling racket.
Folks believed that I was hired as one of those individuals who transport children to different countries in the west undercover. And the story became much bigger in the days that followed exposing a disturbing reality. The plight of desperate Lombada families who sell their female babies for what turned out to be low sums of money. The adoption agencies cashing in on that plight.
And the very close ties these agencies have to the government. One local newspaper published photos of one of the men in question standing side by side with important state leaders. Another newspaper reported that five of the rescued babies had just died. And over and over when I would be followed in the streets or getting in and out of taxis the press would ask questions such as why would a rich white American single woman want one of these children?
Look this is a female. She is from the lowest caste. She doesn't deserve to get to do this. If it is her karma to get to live in a rich country let her pay her duty now and someday she will come back and she will be a little boy and then he will live in a rich country.
But you are breaking the lines of karma. Who do you think you are? One afternoon Danielle stepped out of her hotel room with her daughter Hadley to pick up some food and I had my arm around her holding her very close and someone in the street went by and said you want one of ours we will take her. And that really freaked me out.
I was scared and at times really numb but I was not going to give up. So Danielle kept knocking on doors and that brought her to an orphanage run by Sister Teresa a woman who she was told might be able to help. And Sister Teresa opened the door she said nobody is going to touch this and there's nobody that can help you except Vinaka Gandhi in Delhi. Danielle didn't know where the search would ultimately take her or how dangerous it would get so she decided to send Hadley back to the states where she would be safe with her grandparents.
One friend agreed to accompany Hadley home. Danielle asked her other friend a different request if she would stay in India and help her find the baby. Her friend said no. I just knew I was in this alone.
And I mean did you ever question yourself? In what way would I question myself? People are bringing to your attention the danger you're in right? Why not leave?
I thought I would never have my child then. That I would think about her the rest of my life and be haunted. That I had abandoned her. It's not an option to leave.
At that point I felt like I just need to shoulder up and just keep moving. Danielle's next stop was Delhi. From the airport she hailed a taxi and asked the driver to please take her to the government building housing Manneka Gandhi's office. When she stepped out of the taxi she couldn't believe her eyes.
There were just hundreds and hundreds of people camped out all over the grounds. Just throngs of people trying to see her. Above everyone's heads Danielle saw a sign by the main door that said Office of the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment. I walked over and went to the back of the line and took my place.
It wasn't long before a guard opened the door. A very distinguished tall white-haired man. Everybody would just press their bodies against each other and try to get in. When the guard opened the door again.
He looked at me and he may have recognized me from the papers. It may have been that I was the one fair-skinned face in the crowd and he called out in English and said the next time I open the door try to throw me your hand over the heads of people and I will keep pulling on you until I can get you closer. And then the door closed with that group of people and I waited. I just remember the heat of the Delhi sun running out of bottled water I brought from the hotel.
You know just watching for hours different parents and children waiting and crying and you know dripping with sweat as we all were hoping to get in. At some point time seemed to leave me. I eventually got closer and closer. The next time the guard opened the door.
His very large hands I remember across people's heads and shoulders reached out and got my hand and then he grabbed onto my wrist and just kind of pulled me through the crowd and I kind of stumbled into the door. The SnapDash returns. Danielle stands face-to-face with Manneka Gandhi. Stay tuned.
From SnapDash's underground studios and WNYC, you're listening to SnapDash. And lastly left, Danielle Green is one step closer to meeting Manneka Gandhi, who might be her last hope for tracking down Hannah Porva. Step several. The guard led Danielle and about 30 other people down the long hallway and into Manneka Gandhi's office.
And there were rows of folding chairs and we were instructed to sit and to not speak until spoken to. From her bag, Danielle took out a now wrinkled and faded black and white photocopy of the Polaroid of the baby. She clutched it in her hand. My knees are touching the front of her large old wooden desk and her desk was just piled high with large folders and there was an old black rotary phone and people standing around and running and fetching and doing various things that she would make commands.
She was probably about 40, very dark hair, dressed in a sari. Manneka Gandhi would call on one person at a time to stand up. And there were probably about 10 people before me. She starts left to right going up and down.
And she'd ask each person, what do you want? Two people spoke in English. One man said that all the young people in his village were gone, so there was no one left to take care of the elderly. He asked Manneka Gandhi to please put a senior home in his village, like the ones they have in the United States.
Another man asked for medicine, so he could put down his donkeys who were in pain. I couldn't really tell how she was responding because she didn't respond in English until she came to me. So she looked at me and I said, hello, Mrs. Gandhi.
And she said, I know you. I said, yes, I'm Danielle Green. At that point, I reached out my hand to give her a picture. And I said, this is my daughter.
And at that point, she immediately started yelling, I don't want to see a picture of another baby. Don't you understand? I hear people looking for their babies all the time. Can you hear the crying babies outside my windows now?
This is what I hear all day long. I said, I'm just asking for you to believe that I'm not a part of the scandal and I'd like you to help me get my baby. And she said to me, look, you go to the airport, to the Delhi airport, be there at six o'clock. And I'm going to send a baby that will be given to you with all of her papers.
You get on the plane and you get out of this country. I never want to see you again. I looked at her and I said, no, I want my daughter. And then she really got angry and said, you have to stop crying now.
I do not tolerate anyone crying in front of me. She went on to the next person. At that moment, it felt like it was all over. I'm just sitting there.
I'm kind of shaky at this point and trying not to cry. I don't want to upset her more. She went on talking to two or three people. And then I just remember that she picked up the heavy receiver of her phone and started speaking in English.
I'm going to send this one back to Hyderabad. I don't want her to be left alone for a moment. We don't need an American to disappear, be killed in this mess. I want you to stay with her and help her find her child.
Let's just hope her kid's alive. And then she started yelling and saying, I don't care. I want you to keep her safe. Help her find her baby.
After that, she's going to have to prove her own innocence. My job stops here. I was just flooded with emotion. I was relieved.
The same man who had given me his hand and pulled me in motioned to me. And I stood up and he ushered me out of the building. Danielle was on the next two hour flight back to Hyderabad. An entourage of police officers and local government officials were waiting for her at the airport.
They escorted her to a secret building. I just remember driving and driving and then coming up to this very dilapidated building and seeing women squatting over dirty puddles, washing baby clothes. Once inside this old government building turned makeshift orphanage, Danielle was greeted by the cries and screams of almost 200 babies. I was in the front with one of the police officers and trailing behind her were more police officers, the government officials and the photographer.
This young fellow from one of the newspapers who stayed very close to me. So a large group of us just began walking through the various rooms. And each room had rows and rows of cribs. And each crib had a little string with a tag on it, like a cardboard tag, that would have a number on it.
And some of them would say no name with a number and some would say a first name, no name with a number. Other rooms just had babies on like shawls lying on the floors, lined up against one another. I just continued going through the room and trusting that I would recognize my daughter. It was an uncanny, I realize, irrational belief, but one that I had.
And so I imagine I looked at around 150, 60 babies going through very slowly. That in itself was an overwhelming and painful experience, meeting the eyes of so many babies, some babies smiling and reaching out to be picked up, other babies banging their heads against the bars of their cribs, and some babies sleeping. At one point they said, if she isn't in this facility, there are a couple hospitals we will stop by afterwards and continue the search. I continued to walk up and down the aisles.
In the last rolled cribs, a little baby on her stomach lifted her head and she looked up and our eyes met. She had a little string around her wrist and the string had a number on it and it said, no name, Apoorva. That was the confirmation. This was my daughter.
And I could see her even in this faded, copied, black and white picture I had been carrying in my sweating hands all this time. I could see the resemblance of this, you know, younger infant to now this eight month old. So I looked at her and I picked her up. She looked healthy and she looked strong and she had kind of a little rag tied around her for a diaper.
The press immediately started taking pictures and so lots of flashing going on and Apoorva's eyes just got bigger and bigger. As joyous as this moment felt, Danielle couldn't just take Apoorva home. Two things were stopping her. For one, as a result of the scandal, a temporary ban had been placed on international adoption.
And second, Danielle had to convince a judge that she wasn't involved in this child trafficking racket and that she didn't pay for Apoorva. So Danielle went back to Sister Teresa, the woman who ran an orphanage in Hyderabad, and Sister Teresa agreed to take Apoorva in. So everything seemed to look up, especially standing in this very clean, spacious, brightly colored orphanage. But that night, as Danielle prepared to go to a nearby hotel, Sister Teresa stopped her.
She explained to me that it wouldn't be safe for me to stay by myself in a hotel. She told Danielle that she must remember she was involved in a very dangerous situation. Her case was a criminal issue involving some very powerful men. They will kill you.
You don't understand. And I didn't know if it was a figure of speech or what. And then she explained to me that people are too upset and it's possible that you would be kidnapped or hurt. You need to be in hiding.
She had set up a hospital room within walking distance. So she had thought through this very carefully. You know, I was scared. I was scared.
So if this is what she believed was best, I would do it. So I agreed to go into hiding. When night fell, Sister Teresa walked Danielle over to the hospital building that was next to the orphanage. She led her up a back staircase down a long empty corridor to a dark empty room.
The windows were blacked out and there was a padlock on the door. I don't have access to newspapers. I don't have a television. There are a few people I can talk to.
So there's so much I don't know and they don't want me to go out. There was a little 10-year-old girl in the orphanage and somehow she was entrusted with this secret. And so she would bring rice to me and some tea. usually in the morning I would creep out down the back staircase and kind of creep along the building and up the fire escape and into a side door to the orphanage and I was grateful for any time that I could visit with Anna Porva I fell in love with her I fell in love with being able to hold her and read to her and look in her eyes and feed her and do the things that mothers do with a new baby all the while anticipating all the questions of will I get her now or will I be separated and what will that be like and how will it be for her when Danielle wasn't with Anna Porva she would throw a scarf over her head as cover and dash into a waiting SUV to meet with her attorneys two women who agreed to take on her case but one week became two and two weeks became three Danielle missed her daughter Hadley and she didn't know how much longer she could keep fighting because I was broke I had spent all the money that I had for staying there paying attorneys and I was calling back and forth from India so I had huge telephone bills and I still had bills at home but then her attorneys told her that there was one thing she could do to move her case forward they said this is our hope otherwise we don't know what we can do and basically they said to me the judge has said that if you will go to the prison where Peter Subaya is being held Peter Subaya was none other than the man who ran the orphanage where 56 children including Anna Porva had been found by police Subaya had been arrested and locked up and if he will sign this document that her parents gave her up freely and that you are not participating in any kind of a ring that I will begin to process the papers I mean all of this is confusing why would they believe this criminal anything he would say but those were the instructions early the next morning Danielle slipped into a waiting vehicle that drove her to the outskirts of Hyderabad to the prison where Peter Subaya was being held sitting next to her in the back seat was Sister Teresa we pulled up to the prison and I had thought Sister Teresa was going to go into the prison with me and stay with me but she turned to me and said I won't be going with you he will know who I am he will see that I am helping you and they could come after me he is dangerous so do not mention me do not mention the orphanage where Anna Porva is do not mention where you are staying and once you take this step all of his cronies outside of prison are going to know you are still here in India we could be taken over on the drive home so I'm going to stay hidden in the car the car had all dark windows and you go in and try to meet with him and get this form signed so I I went into the prison yard this dusty prison yard and about every hour or so a guard would come and give me a motion just wait just wait and I continued to wait the temperature had been over about 112 that day there was not a tree or any place for shade it was the hottest I've ever been in my life and then after about four hours I was motioned to follow this guard and in a cell that looked more like a cage this small single cell it was just packed with men all squatting and Subaya had his hands gripped around the bars squatting very close I faced him and I said hello you know I held out the paper would you be willing to sign this I can get a guard that will come over with a pen and all you have to do is sign this but he said if I sign this they will definitely think that I am guilty you get out of here get out of my sight I don't care if you get hurt or not there was something that just felt so dark and rather evil I left and went back to the waiting vehicle with sister Teresa and told her I hadn't been successful before you approached your mom Anna Porva with these questions did you have any sense that there was a bigger story to your adoption story oh I knew there was something more definitely so um we referenced the carpool scenario with my friend Julian the scenario goes like this it was in third grade she's riding along in the back of the car I'm carpooling with her and this little boy and this child starts talking about I know all about you my ears perked up and she said what do you mean and he said my dad and I looked you up on the internet we read all about you I know all about your whole story my heart's dropping because I don't know what he's going to say you know it's like somebody else telling your kid something that's going to forever shape their lives and so I'm positioning myself to interrupt if this child says too much fortunately he didn't and he stopped and we got home I noticed that she was unusually quiet and when I asked her about her feelings if she had any questions she said no and I let it be I knew about that article I found it I read it myself back then before I met Julian you did in elementary school yeah before that how did you find it just um Harley and I were just looking up our names on the internet um seeing what popped up and the star king article um popped up and we read it and I saw a picture of me in it and um all I got from it was confirmation that I was indeed adopted and star king knows it and that it sounded like it was a pretty tricky adoption I didn't really understand all of it and because I was so young I didn't think I needed to so I just let it slip by this story original score original dorio produced by nancy lopez this story is not over not by a long shot in the next segment here the stunning conclusion part two the search for no name apurva now if you need more snap in your life I get it you understand for the more amazing stories like more movies of the mind await your listening pleasure subscribe to the snapdust podcast right now right now before the powers that be discovered snapdust with the secret that could topple the system snapdust wherever you get your podcast get this one snapdust watching by the team that never let you know what they're really thinking and that goes double for the old producer mr mark christic anna susman nancy lopez patty miller wenzel gorio leon morimoto marissa dodge shane shealy more newser john the steel nika singh taylor decott flow wiley on drums and though spas monster populous they try to convince the influencers otherwise please no this is not the news no ways this means in fact you could hide a secret thing in the secret apartment of your secret place don't you realize at precisely the wrong moment but you're significant other it's not very good to keep you secrets you would still still not be as far away from the news as this is this is the nyc from prx