A cradle outside a home in Lucknow may look strange for passersby but for orphaned and abandoned girls, it ensures love, warmth and motherly care. Dr Sarojini Agarwal, now 80 years old, is 'Maa' to the scores of girls and young women who live at Manisha Mandir (as the destitute home is called) ... where she raises her adopted daughters. Her [own] eight-year-old daughter Manisha died in a road accident in 1978. I was lamenting the loss of one when there were so many other Manishas, homeless and unloved, looking for a mother. Perhaps I could give them a loving home," she recalls. Manisha Mandir was set up in 1985. The first girl she adopted was a deaf and mute child whose mother, a divorcee, had died while giving birth. Other girls followed - some who were found abandoned, others given up as unwanted while some others were picked up from the streets by Agarwal. A few also found their way out of brothels. Dr Agarwal also began hanging a crib ... near the gate of her home. Here, people could leave abandoned newborns, instead of leaving them on the streets. Over the years, Manisha Mandir has changed addresses a few times and is now housed in a sprawling, three-storey home. The abandoned and orphaned girls taken in by Manisha Mandir stay at the home till the age of 17-18 and are then encouraged to take up a job. Till date, close to 800 girls have stayed at the home and many of them have made their mark as bank managers, teachers and principals, while others have married into good families.