Ahmedabad: GK Mawani and his wife Rama recently celebrated their son Jay’s first birthday in Surat. Also present at the party was Chetna (26), who gave birth to Jay. Chetna is the wife of Mawani’s nephew.

Rama hadn’t been able to conceive in her 16-year marriage so Chetna agreed to carry her uncle’s child. For the K-serial crazy Mawanis, Chetna is their family’s “Tulsi”.

In fact, Gujarat has many examples of family members rescuing childless relatives by donating eggs or sperm. For instance, the wife of one brother donating eggs to the childless spouse of the other brother. A woman offering her womb to a child born of her husband’s sperm and an egg from their recently widowed daughter-in-law!

It may sound like genetics gone mad, but there’s a reason this happens. Childless Indians are wary of taking sperm and eggs from strangers, says Dr Naina Patel, whose clinic in Anand delivered country’s first surrogate grandmother of her own grandchildren. She says Indians “are comfortable with a family member coming to help, as there are no issues of caste and religion. Besides, it does not contaminate the traditional family gene pool”.