As a reader I want to experience joy, sadness, exhilaration and deflation but I felt none of these in this section of the book.Īgainst the odds, Saroo does find his home and he does have a very emotional reuniting with his mother. The writing is very factual and to the point. But…when he is trawling through the internet for hours on end, I’m just not so sure the reader is brought on that part of the journey with him. Saroo Brierley has an amazing story to tell. Now this is where I unfortunately lost interest in the book and found myself skimming over a few pages. He had a vague recollection of specific markers in his hometown in India and with the upgrading of Google Earth and technology over the years, the search became a little more accessible. With the development of the internet, and more importantly Google Earth, Saroo began a search that would remain his goal for many years. His adoptive parents did adopt another young boy from India but his was a different story to Saroo’s and his background, though sketchy, was a very traumatic one. But for Saroo it meant leaving his homeland, as the Brierley family lived in Australia.Ī warm welcome awaited Saroo and for many years he adapted well to this new culture, but always the longing to go home was there. Unable to locate his own immediate family and also due to Saroo’s young age and inability to communicate properly, it was felt that this new family would be his saving Grace. Saroo, through a pure twist of fate, ended up in the care of a very good lady, Mrs Sood, from the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption (ISSA), who secured him an adoptive family. A little boy witnessing such scenes of a brutal nature when all he wants is to go home and get a warm and welcome hug from his mummy. Saroo continues with such vivid descriptions of the horrors that he was exposed to at such a young age and this was the part of the book that stole my heart. Daylight confirmed that this was the biggest river I had ever seen, but it was also fouler and smellier, lined with dead animals, human excrement and filth….I was horrified to see two dead people lying among the piles of rubbish, one with his throat cut, the other with his ears chopped off….The sight made me feel sick…it confirmed what I’d already begun to feel – that every day in this city was a matter of life and death.’ Saroo Age 5 ‘As the stallholders had seemed indifferent to begging children, I went along the water’s edge, thinking I might find people cooking there. Able to keep a low profile, Saroo eventually finds himself in Calcutta. In a blind panic he hops on a train, without any idea of where it travels to. The day passes and Saroo nods off but it is later when he wakes up, he discovers that he is alone. At the railway station, Guddu tells him to remain there while he heads off to look for food and work. One fateful day, Saroo persuades his older brother, Guddu, to take him along on one of his trips, as Saroo now feels old enough to handle the experience. At the tender age of five, Saroo looks after his two-year old younger sister while his mother and brothers go out to work and scavenge for food. The story of Saroo Brierley would break your heart. Unfortunately, for me, it did not live up to my expectations… In this case, I was very intrigued to read Lion, so I was only too delighted when it was chosen for our book-club read in May. The very interesting thing about being involved in a book-club is that you sometimes get to read books that you may not normally have gravitated toward. It celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit – hope. Then he set off on a journey to find his mother.Ī Long Way Home is a moving and inspirational true story of survival and triumph against incredible odds. And one day, after years of searching, he miraculously found what he was looking for. When he was a young man the advent of Google Earth led him to pore over satellite images of the country for landmarks he recognised. He spent hours staring at the map of India on his bedroom wall. Not knowing the name of his family or where he was from, he survived for weeks on the streets of Kolkata, before being taken into an orphanage and adopted by a couple in Australia.ĭespite being happy in his new family, Saroo always wondered about his origins. Saroo had become lost on a train in India at the age of five. When Saroo Brierley used Google Earth to find his long-lost home town half a world away, he made global headlines. Book Info: (Courtesy of Author’s Website)
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