Asha Sadan is a Mumbai landmark, inseparable from the city’s history. Located in Dongri, it is a place I have often passed—familiar yet easy to overlook. Established in 1921 by an Indian women’s association, it has long sheltered women and children, particularly unmarried mothers and their babies. Many of these children were placed for adoption, sometimes within India but often abroad.

I flipped through Mother Unknown: Adoption of Children from India in the Swiss Cantons of Zurich and Thurgau, 1973–2002. As I was drawn in by its focus on Mumbai and the children adopted overseas, I noticed the cover image—Asha Sadan. Two of the authors were credited with the photograph, though it does not explicitly identify the building, perhaps for the right reasons. The open-access book is edited by Andrea Abraham, Sabine Bitter and Rita Kesselring and published by Chronos Verlag (Zurich).