A Long Way Home

“Of course, when I first arrived in Australia, the emphasis was on the future, not the past. I was being introduced to a new life in a very different world from the one I’d been born into, and my new mum and dad were putting a lot of effort into facing the challenges that experience brought.”

Sue and John’s primary concern was to help Saroo adjust to life in Australia. The encouragement to look towards the future helped him to hope for the times ahead, and Saroo’s awareness of his adoptive parents’ challenges reveals how mature he already was upon joining the Brierley family.

“Hunger limits you because you are constantly thinking about getting food, keeping the food if you do get your hands on some, and not knowing when you are going to eat next.”

Hunger was all-consuming for young Saroo. It forced him and his brothers to scrounge, beg, and steal. Although Saroo’s memories of India are fragmented, he vividly recalls the hunger of his childhood and the things he was forced to do to sate it.

“Sometimes it felt as if the world had forgotten about us and our problems. But then we would meet someone from the neighborhood who treated us with respect.”

Saroo illustrates how lonely and isolating his disenfranchisement felt as a child. Others ignored his challenges as an impoverished child, and kindness from strangers led him to feel seen. Those in the neighborhood who were kind to him raised his self-esteem and showed Saroo that he lived a worthy life, regardless of society’s blind eye.

“Self-pity was a deep well that if I once fell into, I might never get out.”

Saroo provides insight into his ability to remain a resilient child. As a small child, Saroo’s survival overtook self-pity as living became the priority. This determination sees him asking strangers for help, finding safe places to sleep, and scrounging for food on his own.

“I was heartbroken that all my hopes had come to nothing.”

Saroo’s reliance on the kindness of strangers to survive in Kolkata came with its risks. After a railway worker takes him in, he discovers the man’s true intentions and learns a harsh truth that not all can be trusted. The betrayal dashed Saroo’s hopes of a better life, leaving him heartbroken and vulnerable. 

“Of course, I can't be sure what the railway worker's friend had planned or what happened to the children who were grabbed from the station that night I slept nearby, but I feel pretty certain that they faced greater horrors than I ever did.”

Saroo draws attention to the vulnerability of impoverished children in India. In the year Saroo went missing, 14 million Indian children died from starvation or illness. Saroo’s avoidance of mistrustful adults reveals his understanding of the dangers he faced as a child and the potential for abduction, violence, and even death.

“I told the folks at the orphanage that I wanted to go to Australia.”

Saroo’s consent to his adoption is a great turning point in his life, as he exercises control over his circumstances for one of the first times in his life. This decision effectively changes his life forever and demonstrates his own feelings towards luck and fate.

“Apparently, in the end, the delight I took in having abundant food close at hand overcame most matters of taste or culture.”

Saroo’s culture shock at eating previously taboo meats like beef takes a backseat to his survival instincts. At first, Saroo cries tears when he sees Sue putting beef in the refrigerator. However, Sue’s reassurances and his wide access to food surpassed any religious reservations. This moment illustrates the changes Saroo undergoes once in Australia as he acclimates to the culture.

“I was keen on the idea of having a sibling. In fact, it seemed that the person I missed most from India was my sister.”

This highlights his loneliness since his separation from his biological family. Family serves as a key theme in Saroo’s memoir, and he rebuilds one with the Brierleys. His desire for a younger sibling also demonstrates Saroo’s memories of caring for his little sister in the past, as well as his maturity in yearning for a sibling he could grow with.

“What happened to Mantosh exposed the harm that the bureaucratic adoption system can inflict. When I learned about his past, later on, I couldn't stop thinking about the nights I'd spent in the Liluah juvenile home, and how easily I could've experienced trauma similar to what Mantosh had experienced.”

Saroo addresses India’s flawed adoption system. He retroactively understands the danger that he faced, even in a facility dedicated to caring for children. Mantosh’s experience contrast’s Saroo’s as they both spent time as Liluah, but Mantosh’s two years were ones of physical and sexual abuse. Saroo’s desire for a sibling introduces Mantosh’s story into his and the Brierley’s lives, and it inspires Sue to lobby to streamline the international adoption process in Australia to prevent children from suffering.

“Mum was delighted when the word came through but also calm: somewhere inside her, she'd always felt that the vision she'd had at the age of twelve had meant it was her destiny to have an adopted child by her side.”

Sue believes in fate. Sue’s beliefs influenced Saroo, who interprets key events in his life through the lens of destiny. Her belief in destiny shows in her happy, yet calm response to successfully adopting Saroo. Her reaction informs Saroo’s own development and responses later in life to revelations regarding his biological family.

“We all reach a point as young adults when we wonder what we should be doing with our lives–or, at the very least, which direction to point ourselves in. Beyond the means to get by, we need to think about what’s most important to us. Not surprisingly, I discovered that for me the answer was family.”

Family plays a central role in Saroo’s life and memoir. His separation from his biological family rooted within him a family-oriented outlook on life, leading him to join his adopted father’s business to spend more time with his family. His realization also leads Saroo to search for a partner to spend his life with, recreating and reestablishing what he lost in childhood. Furthermore, his attitude towards family fuels his reunion with his biological family in India years later.

“I’d learned quickly, as a matter of survival, that I needed to take opportunities as they came–if they came–and to look forward to the future.”

Saroo’s childhood shapes his life as a young adult, where he is practical, taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to him. His attitude is fueled by his past experiences with poverty and living a life unhoused while scrounging for scraps of food. Now that those are no longer issues, he transitions this outlook to his work and personal lives as a young man.

“Maybe the past could help shape the future.”

Despite being practical, Saroo resumed his search after returning to Hobart when not knowing what happened to his Indian family began to weigh on him. He wanted the past to have a positive impact on his future, rather than leave him with questions. His search was casual at first, but it grew more methodical over time.

“Mum had such a dedicated belief in adoption and the authentic family that adoption created. I was worried about how my news would affect her, and I wanted to reassure her that of course they would always be my parents.”

This passage focuses on adoption and family. Sue’s childhood experiences taught her that actions and feelings, rather than blood, create families. Saroo worried that Sue would be upset when he resumed his search for his hometown. His desire to reconnect with his birth family, however, in no way altered his love for his parents. His concerns highlight the selfless concern for one another the Brierleys fostered in Saroo.

“We looked at each other for a second longer, and I felt a sharp stab of grief that it could take a mother and son even a few moments to simply recognize each other and then a rush of joy that we now had. She stepped forward, took my hands, and held them, and stared into my face with utter wonderment.”

This poignant passage describes Saroo and Kamla’s reunion. The moment is bittersweet for Saroo. He is saddened to have lost 25 years with his mother but overjoyed to be reunited with her at last.

“Even at this first meeting, she told me she was grateful to my parents who had raised me in Australia, and that they had the right to call me their son because they had raised me from a child and made me the man I was today. Her only concern for me, she said, was that I should have the very best life I could.”

Kamla is a loving mother who only wants what’s best for her children. She experienced immense grief when she lost Saroo. In this passage, she does not wallow in her grief, but instead expresses gratitude. Kamla is grateful for the opportunities that adoption afforded Saroo and recognizes the Brierleys as her son’s true parents.

“My return seemed to inspire and energize the neighborhood, as though it was evidence that the hard luck of life did not have to rule you. Sometimes miracles do happen.”

Word of Saroo’s return spread quickly in Ganesh Talai. Kallu visited on his motorcycle, followed by Shekila and her family. Neighbors stopped by, eager to meet Kamla’s lost son. Recognizing it as a momentous event, family, friends, and strangers played music and danced in the streets, turning Saroo’s return into a public celebration and reinvigorating a sense of hope into the community at the return.

“And even though it was exhausting to go over my story again and again with the media, I thought I had a kind of duty to do it, because it might help people–what had happened to me was remarkable, and might offer hope to others who wanted to find their lost family but thought it impossible.”

Receiving media attention surprised Saroo. Local, national, and international news outlets approached him shortly after he found his family. Saroo shared his story with them to help others, the same reason he decided to write a memoir.

“One of the most touching things my mother said to me was that if I ever wanted to come back to live in India, she would build me a home and go out and work hard so that I could be happy.”

Kamla’s inclination is to care for Saroo, even though he is an adult, highlighting the familial bond between them. Saroo believes it is his turn to take care of Kamla. Thus, he supplements her income and makes arrangement to buy her a house.

“When I was being shown the two routes I might have taken twenty-five years earlier, I had to face up to the uncertainty of my memories of that time.”

This quote is about the fallibility of memory. Saroo doesn’t remember spending two nights on the train that took him from Burhanpur to Kolkata as a child, nor does he recall changing trains. As he recreates the journey as an adult, he realizes that his memories are flawed. Young Saroo was terrified and panicked when he awoke on a moving train. Given his emotional state, it is unsurprising that his memories of the journey are jumbled.

“The traffic noise was tremendous and there were clouds of blue smoke rising, momentarily cloaking the scene.”

Saroo experienced culture shock when he returned to India as an adult. He uses evocative language to describe his impressions, allowing readers to visualize India in their mind’s eye and to reflect his inner emotions as he returns to the site of his separation.

“But my experiences have undoubtedly shaped who I am today, providing me with an unshakable faith in the importance of family—however it is formed—and a belief in the goodness of people and the importance of grasping opportunities as they are presented. I wouldn’t wish to erase any of that. It’s true, too, that my Indian family has received opportunities they would not have had otherwise had none of this taken place. I feel strongly that there is an element of destiny in these events, intertwining my two families, with me as the linchpin.”

Saroo believes in destiny and believes fate brought him into his parents’ lives and returned him to his hometown decades later. Saroo’s adoption afforded him a better life. Kallu and Shekila benefited from his disappearance by attending school and lifting themselves out of poverty. Saroo’s return allowed him to support Kamla, the woman who birthed, loved, and raised him until the age of five. His return also linked two families that otherwise would not have met.