Kathmandu, May 23 -- A growing number of adult adoptees of Nepali origin have started returning to the land of their birth, and seeking not only emotional reconnection but formal recognition through the Non-resident Nepali (NRN) card or citizenship.

But these returnees are too often met not with welcome, but with suspicion, obstruction, and at times, open hostility.

After becoming the first adoptee to obtain an NRN card, I recently returned to Nepal to successfully claim NRN-citizenship. That success does not signify a welcoming state structure towards adoptees. On the contrary, it was an odyssey through psychological, legal and transnational hurdles.

In fact, my case is among the more straightforward ones: my birth parents are alive...