The problem was that as an illiterate five-year-old he had not known the name of the town he had come from. But as he got older the desire to find his birth family became increasingly strong. “I accepted that I was lost and that I could not find my way back home, so I thought it was great that I was going to Australia.” He was adopted by the Brierleys, a couple from Tasmania. He was taken in by an orphanage, which put him up for adoption. “Ultimately I think he was going to do something not nice to me, so I ran away.”īut in the end, he did get off the streets. You could not trust anyone.” Once he was approached by a man who promised him food and shelter and a way back home. He became a beggar, one of the many children begging on the streets of the city. The little boy learned to fend for himself. I don’t think any mother or father would like to have their five year old wandering alone in the slums and trains stations of Calcutta.” I just started to look for people and ask them questions.” Though he did not realise it at first, he had arrived in Calcutta, India’s third biggest city and notorious for its slums. Instead, he fell asleep and had a shock when he woke up 14 hours later. Saroo did not meet his brother on the train. So I decided to get on it and hoped that I would meet my brother.” I saw a train in front of me and thought he must be on that train. “I thought my brother would come back and wake me up but when I awoke he was nowhere to be seen. That fateful nap would determine the rest of his life. We got off the train, and I was so tired that I just took a seat at a train station, and I ended up falling asleep.” He was travelling with his older brother, working as a sweeper on India’s trains. Saroo was only five years old when he got lost. Retrieved 16 September 2016.Little boy lost finds his mother using Google EarthĪn Indian boy who lost his mother in 1986 has found her 25 years later from his new home in Tasmania – using satellite images. ^ " 'Arrival,' 'La La Land,' 'Moonlight' and more: How the Toronto Film Festival movies will play with Oscar voters".^ "TIFF 2016: Garth Davis' 'Lion' with Dev Patel is an Emotional Journey"."Dev Patel's Lion May Be the Inspirational Awards-Season Tale You're Looking For". ^ "Saroo Brierley on set to see his life story take shape"."Book Review: 'A Long Way Home' Taylor Dibbert Book Review: 'A Long Way Home' ". "Book review: 'A Long Way Home,' by Saroo Brierley". "A Long Way Home: Ghostwriter Larry Buttrose on telling Saroo Brierley's story behind the film Lion". "Lion: Saroo Brierley's next book to be a prequel to A Long Way Home". "Saroo Brierley, the inspiration for the film Lion: 'My mother saw my face after 25 years' ". Dev Patel was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. In 2016, the book was adapted into major international feature film Lion, directed by Garth Davis and starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara. Retitled Lion, the book was on The New York Times Best Seller list for Paperback Nonfiction for six weeks during the first quarter of 2017. Brierley’s journey is inspirational and deeply moving it’s another reminder of how potent passion and the human spirit actually are".
He concludes the book on a reflective note. This is an honest story of pain, struggle, hope and love. Taylor Dibbert of International Policy Digest added "It’s not hard to understand why this work has received such high praise. As well as the tale of his quest, he provides an informative and fascinating insight into how Third World families live with, and somehow survive, their poverty". Dianne Dempsey of The Sydney Morning Herald commented "Brierley writes in a straightforward manner without trying to do anything fancy except tell a remarkable story. Karina Wetherbee of Vail Daily stated "There is a real feeling of catharsis when reading Brierley's astounding narrative, in the classic sense of a happy ending, for the journey of the author as a boy - and then again as a young man - evokes the audacity of a fable, but it is set in the real world, a place where wonderment and miraculous occurrences can often seem wanting". Buttrose recorded hours of interviews with both Saroo and his adoptive mother and completed a 70,000-word manuscript in a hotel room in Kolkata to meet a tough three-month deadline set by the publisher. In an interview to ABC Radio Sydney, Larry Buttrose explained that "From the very first time I came in contact with the story, I knew it was a fantastic story. In this autobiographical book, Brierley covers three decades of his life, describing his ordeals and adventures as a lost five-year-old in rural India, his adoption by a middle-class Australian family, and his search for his Indian native family some 25 years later.