An Indian man is seeking damages for the “mental trauma” he endured after being intentionally abandoned on a train in Mumbai 38 years ago

In a lawsuit filed to the Bombay High Court and cited by local media, make-up artist Srikant Sabnis, 40, alleges that his biological mother willfully abandoned him when he was just two years old.

Sabnis claims that in September 1981, his mother, Aarti Mhaskar, left his hometown of Pune for Mumbai to seek a job in the film industry. According to the plaintiff, the woman left her infant son on the train once they arrived in the city. The boy was found by a railway officer and was sent to an orphanage, the lawsuit says, after which he was forced “to live like a beggar” until his grandmother obtained custody over him.

The plaintiff allegedly did not learn the identity of his mother until 2017, and met her a year later. According to the lawsuit, the woman admitted to leaving Sabnis nearly four decades ago due to “unavoidable circumstances,” but she and her current husband asked him not to reveal who he really is in front of their other children.