Chellamuthu's passport picture
Soon to be "Taj"
Sign up to hear about author book signings events near you!
Click Here!
Click Here!
A young Arayi Gounder (Taj's mother)
Arayi is on the left beside her two sisters.
Village hut
This hut, located today in his father's village, would be similar to the one in Erode where Taj lived as a child.
Taj's (Chellamuthu) family before kidnapping
This picture of Taj's family, taken just before the kidnapping, hung in the family hut until the day Taj returned nearly two decades later. (Taj is front row, on the left.)
You are going to LOVE this story! One of the best books I've read!
— A. Clawson
Early letter received from the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children
Notice the motto on the top left 'Best parents for the child, but not the best child for the parent'
Taj's first Christmas in the US
"Remind me again why I'm sitting on the lap of a fat man in a red suit?"
The old park entrance
Taj stands beside the gate that once guarded the entrance to the park where he would sneak over the fence to play as a child.
1983: Linda, Taj and brothers
Taj in a cowboy hat? Priceless
Amazing! Amazing! Amazing! I can't say enough good about this book.
— J. Wilkes
Taj and Priya's wedding picture.
"Here I am, The one that you love ..."
Sleeper Car
On his first trip to India, as he traveled across the country by train with Christopher, Taj stood for hours on the bottom step of a sleeper car, just like this one, wondering if any of the people they were passing were his family.
The Lincoln Home for Homeless Children
Taj and Christopher today in front of one of the old orphanage walls.
The landowner.
Taj and Papathi Iyer, the kind landowner he knew as a child.
Priya outside the orphanage.
Standing by what remains of the orphanage.
Selvaraj's bleaching factory
Near where Taj found his family.
Man in bleach
Taj stands today with the man who'd been in the bleaching pond on the day Taj first returned to find his family.
Mechanical looms beside the landowner's house
In The Orphan Keeper, when Taj returned to India with his children, he visited Papathi, the landowner. Adjacent to her home, she’d rented space where mechanical looms produced beautiful Indian saris. This is a quick tour of that operation.
Family reunited
This picture was Taj, Priya, and his family the day after he first found them.
Mother's meet
In June of 2015, Taj's two mothers met for the very first time.
Two mothers
"Mother's love their scrapbooks." "No, mother's love their children!"
Still famous
Even today, Taj's picture hangs outside a hut in one of the villages. Relatives still remember the day that little lost Chellamuthu returned.