Dev Patel (as Saroo Brierley) and Priyanka Bose (as Kamla) in the film Lion. Saroo Brierley was a small boy when he got lost. This wasnt a case of a tiny child losing his way in a crowded store or taking a wrong turn on a trail. He boarded a train that led to a journey far from his hometown in India. He exited in Calcutta, a massive city, perhaps even more immense for a five-year-old with no way of getting back home. He didnt know how to read or how to explain where he was from. He had to fend for himself on the streets before he was taken into a group home. When it appeared that no one could find his family, Brierley was adopted by a couple in Australia.
It took decades for Brierley to find the path to his old home. In fact, it took the advent of Google Earth for him to begin the search and a few years of zooming in and out of images of India to find it. When Brierley finally made his way back to his birth family, the event made headlines almost immediately. His successful search has inspired numerous news stories over the years. Brierley has talked extensively on how he used technology to embark on a search that would have seemed otherwise impossible. He also wrote a memoir, A Long Way Home. That book is the basis for the movie, Lion, starring Dev Patel as Brierley and featuring performances from Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman and David Wenham. The film, which screened for the KCET Cinema Series on November 22, is now in theaters.
I read the book immediately and my heart literally jumped through my chest, screenwriter Luke Davies, who adapted the memoir for film, said to the KCET Cinema Series audience, simply because the story seemed so pure and so powerful, like a kind of mythic fable.
Sunny Pawar (as a young Saroo Bierley) in the film Lion.
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Brierley was born into an impoverished family in India. He was the third of four children and raised in his early years by a single mother who worked grueling hours. Even at the tender age of four, Brierley had serious responsibilities. He took care of his younger sister and helped find food to eat. One night, he accompanied an older brother on a trek that took them to a train station in another town. His brother told him to wait at the station. Brierley fell asleep and, when he woke, his brother was nowhere to be found. The little boy hopped a train trying to find his sibling.
Brierley recalls the events with vague memories and intense emotional details. In A Long Way Home, he describes the realization that he was stuck on a train as at once a feeling of weakness, hyperactivity and incredulity. He adds that he doesnt remember his immediate response, but still recalls the heart-racing anxiety of being alone in a train car, looking at signs he couldnt read, ultimately calling for his brothers and his mom, but getting no response.
Sunny Pawar (as a young Saroo Bierley) in the film Lion.
In his memoir, Brierley notes that he believed he had been on the train for between 12 and 15 hours when he got lost. It wasnt until he made his way back to India as an adult that he realized that his travels lasted much longer than that. But, it wasnt just the distance that stood in the way of Brierley and his home. He didnt know his last name. He also mispronounced his first name; after reuniting with his mother, Brierley learned that she named him Sheru (which means Lion). He also mispronounced the name of his town and the town where he caught the train. Away from his family, he was on his own on the streets of a very large city. He encountered some men who offered to help him. Young Brierley was apprehensive. As an adult, he explains it as a perceived cost/benefit analysis that a child forced into a grown-up situation develops. He escaped before they could take advantage of him. Eventually, he met an older boy who took Brierley to the police. That led to a stint in a group home and then, after the authorities were unable to locate his family, placement in an orphanage. Brierley was quickly adopted by an Australian couple and moved to Hobart, Tasmania.
Brierleys adoptive parents, John and Sue, provided a good home for the young boy. Mum and Dad were very affectionate, right from the start, always giving me lots of cuddles and making me feel safe, secure, loved, and above all, wanted, he writes in A Long Way Home. That meant a lot to a child whod been lost and had experienced what it was like for no one to care about him.
Nicole Kidman (as Sue Brierley), David Wenham (as John Brierley) and Sunny Pawar (as a young Saroo Bierley) in the film Lion.
He admits that there was some internal conflict in his life. Once Brierley got to Hobart, his world changed dramatically. Where once he had to beg for food, now he had an abundance of it. But, he had endured a traumatic journey. Brierley describes his experience of settling into Australia, how a movie or a piece of music triggers emotional memories, as he struggled to explain what happened until he was able to converse in English.
Brierley ultimately adapted to Australian life. His parents kept reminders of India around him, like a map that was in his bedroom. He also maintained friendships with other children who were adopted from India. But, he identified as Australian or, as he writes, a proud Tassie (i.e., someone from Tasmania). He describes his teenage years as fairly typical: he made friends and was a bit rebellious until his grades started to suffer and his parents reprimanded him. He worked in restaurants and clubs and eventually went back to school to study hospitality management. In college, he met students from India who helped rekindle interest in his homeland. His new friends wanted to help him find his family, but the details Brierley conveyed werent immediately familiar to them.
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