Saroo Brierley was four years old when he was separated from his family. He was born into poverty and barely had enough to eat, so he and his brother would jump trains in their small hometown in India and beg passengers for money. One fateful day, little Saroo decided to take a quick snooze on a train and when he awoke, he found himself in an empty car headed to an unfamiliar land. Saroo then lived on the streets of Kolkata until an orphanage took him in. He was later adopted and raised by a couple in Tasmania.
Saroo grew up an Aussie, but he never forgot his Indian roots, often having flashbacks and fleeting memories of his childhood home.
“I remembered landmarks,” Saroo told The Mirror. “For example, there was a waterfall where we used to play and the dam. But I didn’t know the city or town’s name and finding a small neighborhood in a vast country proved to be nearly impossible.”
Frustrated, Saroo decided to use Google Earth’s satellites to help him find some of the fading landmarks he remembered from his childhood. After months of searching the internet, he finally found a needle in a haystack — the possible location of his childhood house.
Inspired, he went on a 1,000-mile journey through India in search of his mother, brother, and true origins.
To watch Saroo’s amazing story unfold — which he wrote a book about called A Long Way Home that will soon be made into a movie staring Nicole Kidman and Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel — watch the amazing video below.
Make sure to SHARE this incredible story with everyone you know because, who knows — maybe it will help someone you love find an estranged-but-missed element of their past.
