AFTER Madam Indranee Nadisen's own brood - five boys and a girl - started going to school, she became bored at home, so she took in foster children.

Looking after these children - mostly abandoned or from families who were unable to provide for them - became her life's work over the next 32 years.

With 43 children having passed through her hands, she holds the record under the Fostering Scheme here.

Madam Indranee, who herself was adopted by an Indian family when she was a baby, finally called it a day as a foster mum in July because of persistent shoulder problems.

Yesterday, she was thanked for her contributions at a party organised by the Ministry for Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS).

A visibly moved MCYS Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, his voice trembling, thanked Madam Indranee for the love she had shown the children she took in. He also suggested that she be named an honorary foster mother.

The 68-year-old grandmother of nine is sad that she has to stop doing something that she loves.

Referring to her problem shoulder, she said as tears welled in her eyes: 'If not for my health, I would carry on. I love children.

'When the child runs to me, I cannot carry him now. It is not nice to offend them like that.'

Close as she is to her wards, she prefers to cut ties cleanly when they leave her home, sometimes to return to their parents or to live with adoptive parents.

'I do not want to keep in touch. If they are back with their parents or if they have a proper home, then I am happy for them,' she said.

Two of her foster children, however, are still in touch with her. One is an Indian girl, now 31, whom Madam Indranee and her retired civil servant husband Ambrose Dorai, 70, have adopted because they have only one biological daughter.

The other foster child still lives with the couple. Ms Eunice Tung, 23, who works for her uncle's electrical company, chose to continue living with Madam Indranee instead of her own relatives after her release from the fostering scheme upon turning 18.

'I told her she has relations, but she told the officer she wanted to stay. It was very touching,' said Madam Indranee, who was presented the Friend of MCYS Award in 2001 and the Reader's Digest Inspiring Asians Award in 2003.

The rest of her foster children end their stay after around two years.

Madam Indranee has never learnt to deal with the heartache of these partings, and cried each time a child was taken away.

She sometimes had to lie to the child when the adoptive parents turned up, saying she had to go to the toilet so that the child would let go of her.

'From the toilet, I would hear the child screaming for me and my heart would hurt,' she said. 'The love and bonding is there. They are like family.'

Her third son, Father Richards Ambrose, 44, said his mother treated all the children under her roof equally.

'There was no bigger piece of chicken for her own children,' he said.

Madam Indranee added that if there were sweets, the foster children got to choose first. She would explain to her own children that the foster children had no parents and therefore needed more love.

But her four-room flat in Lorong Ah Soo has been quiet in the last two months, and she has not quite figured out what to do with her time.

'After I watch TV, I rearrange the clothes in the cupboard or take out all the cups and rearrange those. I am very bored,' she said.

MCYS' Fostering Scheme, in place since 1956, has 184 foster parents caring for 300 children. The ministry says more foster families are still needed.

The scheme has given love and comfort to more than 5,000 children and teens in the last half-century.

Madam Indranee, making a pitch for becoming a foster parent, said: 'Sometimes when you play and laugh with the children, all your troubles and worries fly away. If you have the time, you should do it.'

simlinoi@sph.com.sg

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LOVE FOR CHILDREN

'If not for my health, I would carry on. I love children. When the child runs to me, I cannot carry him now. It is not nice to offend them like that.'
Madam Indranee

'There was no bigger piece of chicken for her own children.'
Father Richards Ambrose