Table of Content
The story moves back and forth, quite naturally, from Saroo’s memories to his searches to today, and it’s amazing how much and how well he remembered. The Goodreads description is the first four introductory pages of the book. It is so long and thorough, you can get a good idea of what it sounds like.
All he had to go by was that there was a train station whose name was something like 'Berampur' , that it had a water tower, an overpass across the tracks and that the town had a fountain near a cinema. His village 'Ginestlay' was somewhere nearby and that they were all reachable overnight by train from Calcutta. He notes that a nearby town is called Khandwa and that there is a Facebook group belonging to people from Khandwa. He contacts them and gets the key info that there is a nearby village called Ganesh Talai - the 'Ginestlay' of 5-year-old Saroo! Saroo soon goes to India and reconnects with his birth family to the great delight of his elderly mother Kamala and his siblings Shekila and Kallu, who are now married with children.
Shipping and handling
It grossed $29.6 million, becoming the fifth highest-grossing Australian film ever at the Australian box office. I also think it is grand that he is able to share his love with his adoptive parents, and his birth Mother and maintain those relationships to a level that all are comfortable and happy with. I think when you are adopted, you always wonder where you "Came from" Even though you love your adoptive parents to the moon and back, there is always this hole, that can never be filled. In this case, Saroo made the right decision to discover his roots again and to get answers to unanswered questions that had been gnawing away at him for 25 years.
Saroo reveals that he is not from Calcutta and that he has been lost for more than twenty years, and his friends suggest he use Google Earth to search for his hometown in India. Saroo commences his search, but over time disconnects from Lucy and his family, overwhelmed by the thought of emotions his family must have gone through when he was missing. In rural India in the mid-1980s, the two brothers separated after Saroo, the younger boy, was instructed by 14 year old Guddu to wait for him inside the train station.
Lion: Der lange Weg nach Hause
But memories of his past—the mother and brother that he mistakenly, unwillingly left—pull at him incessantly. Saroo’s a thousand miles from where he started, though he can’t know that. But when people ask him his mother’s name, he only knows “Mum.” When he tells them where he thinks he’s from—Ganestalay—no one has ever heard of it. He doesn’t even know what direction he came from, what train he took. Saroo is lost, hopelessly lost, in a land of strangers who care very little about the fate of a 5-year-old boy.
But strong negative events can also sear themselves into memory. I believe the basic outline of Saroo's story but also suspect some embellishment during his early years. Saroo himself admits the holes in his memory when he replicated his childhood train journey. There were inconsistencies - from the likelihood of changing trains to the amount of time that had truly elapsed. Saroo had also forgotten his own name, which was "Sheru" ("lion" in English).
Saroo Brierley
Essayed tenderly and effortlessly by Sunny Pawar, Saroo’s close shave with speeding vehicles or malicious people will make your heart skip a beat. But it’s the moments of equanimity and maturity that make him stand out as a performer. Dev Patel, on the flipside, takes forbearance and breakdowns to extreme ends.
He wonders if Guddu, not the troubled Mantosh, is his real brother. These are questions that nearly tear Saroo apart. He loves his Australian parents, and he’s deeply grateful for everything they’ve given him.
As O'Hare, Midway flight cancellations pile up, some turn to trains
There are several videos and interviews available on Youtube which I still must watch. From the first days after he came to live with his Mom and Dad, his new parents were extremely supportive and helpful. Photographs, maps were drawn of his vague memories as a five year-old, which she kept.
Hindi was his native language, but typical of many small children in desperately poor areas of the world, he had very little vocabulary to work with when he was found. Many refugee children arrive in Australia with little language or smatterings of several but command of none. Saroo owes much of his open heart to Sue and John Brierley, a couple who were heaven sent. They opened their hearts a second time, a few years later, to adopt a brother for Saroo, a second son for them, named Mantash. Guddu also tried extra jobs, selling items at the train station platform, but that created new problems with the law. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
When he wakes up, it’s the dead of night and the depot is deserted. He slinks onto a train, where long years of poverty have taught him to hunt under seats for loose change, crusts of bread, anything that might be of use. Soon, Saroo slumps into another seat and dozes off again.
He worried about his mother who had to work as a brick carrier on construction sites to make ends meet, and had nobody to take care of his little sister. Saroo imagines the fear and horror they must’ve felt when he disappeared, the sadness that perhaps they experienced every day he wasn’t with them. He wonders whether that home—the home he left in India—might be his real home after all.
In an orphanage later, a mentally ill boy, who’s terrified, gets dragged away by guards in the middle of the night. It’s unclear, but the boy seems to know and fear what’s coming, and I wonder whether perhaps his troubles stem from what happens during these midnight abductions. When he wakes up, the little boy feels the train move and rock beneath him. He looks out the window, sees the green and brown of India zipping past.
As much as it maybe attributed it to the truth, it is too simple a trigger for such a complex character. But the concept of home and family isn’t something solely based on blood, Lion shows us. It’s about care and memory and intentionality and, most of all, love. And love is something that the Brierelys shower upon Saroo—even though he doesn’t fully comprehend their motive for doing so.
Lion (2016 film)
I do have to admit that although the book was a little more informative than the movie, it didn't stir as much emotion in me as the movie did. Overall, I recommend this heartwarming story about survival, perseverance, luck, hope and love. His experience makes a wonderful, terrible, terrifying, exhilarating and ultimately satisfying adventure, but there are certainly dark undertones about the children loose on the streets in India. I can’t say they are “neglected”, because that makes it sound as if there’s a choice that they wouldn’t be.
He really told a comprehensive story about his life before he was separated from his family in India. We got to know things about his siblings, his parents, the people that were in his community and all about his life. I enjoyed reading about his life and family in Australia too. I felt at times things were dragged out a bit too much though.
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