‘Lion’ tells the heartbreaking true story of a lost child

Now a feature film, this story is a tear-jerker with a happy ending

ION” is a true story that has also been made into a heartbreaking movie with the same name. The book was previously published as “A Long Way Home” and tells the tale of Saroo Brierley, an Australian born in India who found his biological family with the help of the Internet.

Before he joined his adoptive parents in Tasmania, Saroo lived with his mother, Kamla, his brothers, Guddu and Kallu, and his little sister, Shekila, in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. They were very poor and life was harsh. Their father had left them and Saroo’s mother worked on building sites, carrying heavy stones on her head. She often found work in other towns and was frequently away from home. Hunger was a fact of life for Saroo and his siblings, just like the scorching heat and the swarm of flies.

“Not having enough to eat paralyzes you and keeps you living hour-by-hour instead of thinking about what you would like to accomplish in a day, week, month or year. Hunger and poverty steal your childhood and take away your innocence and sense of security. But I was one of the lucky ones because I not only survived but learned to thrive,” he wrote in the book.

One evening, Guddu took his younger brother with him on a trip. Guddu and Saroo scuttled aboard a train and when they arrived at their destination, Guddu told his brother to sit down on a bench in the railway station and not to move. Saroo went to sleep and when he woke up, he could not see Guddu.

“I’ve often wondered exactly what I was thinking right then. I was still half asleep and I remember being unnerved by finding myself at the station alone at night. My thoughts were muddled. Guddu wasn’t around… maybe he’d got back on the train?” Saroo looked into a carriage, it was empty but the seats seemed comfortable and it was safer than the station. He climbed in and went back to sleep.

When Saroo woke up, he realized that he was trapped alone on a speeding train. He wept, screamed, banged on the windows and slept on and off. Time passed and the train finally stopped. He was miles away from home and had arrived in Kolkata.

All that crying had served its purpose; he felt better and regained his resilience. He was only 5 years old and had no money, no food and no identification. However, his instincts kicked in and guided him. During his ordeal in Kolkata, he ended up in a juvenile detention center. He did not know where his family was and no one could help him. The children’s court eventually released him into the custody of the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption. A month after arriving at an orphanage, only six months after leaving his mother’s home, Saroo was informed that he had been adopted.

Saroo arrived in Australia on Sept. 25, 1987, to live with his adoptive parents in Hobart. He had never been to school and did not speak much Hindi but he was aware of the importance of his memories.

“My memories were all I had of my past and privately I thought about them over and over… As a consequence of this and my determination not to forget, I have always recalled my childhood experiences in India clearly, as an almost complete picture. My family, my home and the traumatic events surrounding my separation from them have remained fresh in my mind, sometimes in great detail. Some of these memories were good and some of them bad but I couldn’t have one without the other and I couldn’t let them go,” Saroo wrote. He never lost hope and was reunited with his family 25 years later.

“I died a little every day in those 25 years without him. Life seemed so incomplete and painful without him. I searched for him everywhere but failed to find him,” his mother said, according to the book. Like her son, she never lost hope. She decided to stay near the house she had been living in when Saroo disappeared so that if he returned, he would find her. The strength of his mother’s instincts, including her belief that he had not died, is one of the most astonishing aspects of this whole story.

After the remarkable tale was discovered and published in the local press, Saroo suddenly became a celebrity. “It just snowballed globally… Penguin Random House, Hachette and Harper Collins were on me to write a book. Then, all of a sudden, people were wanting the rights to the movie,” he wrote.

Incidentally, when Saroo was reunited with his mother, he realized that he had been mispronouncing his name. She called him “Sheru” which means “lion” in Hindi, hence the name of the book and film.

Australian TV and commercials director Garth Davis read about Saroo’s story on the Internet and became obsessed with it.

“It had such a sense of hope about it. It’s primarily about love… It was just one of those stories where you go ‘we just have to get involved in this’,” he wrote.

Nicole Kidman played Saroo’s adoptive mother as it resonated with her own experiences as an Australian and an adoptive mother. Dev Patel, who played the adult Saroo, took eight months to hone his Australian accent and said that he was blown away by the film’s powerful adapted screenplay.

“I was a ball of tears by the end of it. I started to research Saroo’s articles. To be able to play a character well, you’ve got to love them first and that was easy for me because the story is so inspiring,” he said.

One of the most nerve-wracking moments for Patel was when he met the real-life Saroo.

“I worried he’d judged me or see right through me. But he was so warm and informative. What we spoke about were very microcosmic moments and feelings. How were you feeling when you were on that laptop finding your home? I don’t think he gets asked that stuff normally but for me it was important to know,” he said, according to the book.

Two thousand Indian children auditioned for the role of Saroo as a child. After a four-month search, 8-year-old Sunny Pawar was chosen for the role.

This story is powerful and uplifting — it will break your heart but it will also make you believe in miracles.

“The film proves that despite anyone’s background or the country they come from, if you love them, then that is their home,” Davis wrote.