Why a Booktrail?
As a five-year old in India, I got lost on a train. Twenty-five years later, I crossed the world to find my way back home.
Lion
What you need to know before your trail
Five-year-old Saroo lived in a poor village in India, in a one-room hut with his mother and three siblings… until the day he boarded a train alone and got lost. For twenty-five years.
This is the story of what happened to Saroo in those twenty-five years. How he ended up on the streets of Calcutta. And survived. How he then ended up in Tasmania, living the life of an upper-middle-class Aussie. And how, at thirty years old, with some dogged determination, a heap of good luck and the power of Google Earth, he found his way back home.
Lion is a triumphant true story of survival against all odds and a shining example of the extraordinary feats we can achieve when hope endures.
Travel Guide
Two very different journeys
As a boy:
He is proud of his small village – Ginestlay not far from Burhanpur – there is more adventure here and money and food where they go scavaging in the street. His village home is small and basic but as he says himself, it’s not as bad as living in the poor chawls – the very worst living conditions where families live on top of each other. He lives in one room with his family where everyone has their corner and meets in the middle. Outside the chaos and cramped conditions continue – cows wander in the street, they chase the chickens to get the eggs. Life is chaotic but he loves his family and his brothers. Adventures in and around the train station are fun at first….until his adventure turns into a nightmare.
The fear of such a young boy getting on a series of trains trying to find his way back home, but instead being flung into the heat and humidity of Calcutta – his eyes are opened when he sees the size of the city, the bodies in the streets, the dust and depravity. Street smart he has to be in order to survive. Imagine his fear and homesickness, the confusion and sadness? Heartbreaking.
As a man, coming home:
The route he takes (from the book)
He takes the Kolkata train : Bhusawal Burhanpur Khandwa Allahabad Gaya Durgapur Kolkata Jamshedpur Nagpur
Khandwa
He gets to know this town as a adult – when he finds a group on Facebook and travels back.
What a remarkable journey this is! The rediscovering your home as a man when you had left it and your parents, everything you ever knew, when you got lost that day at the train station. The confusion, the fear, the hope that you will be welcomed back but the apprehension that you might not adapt to what you find. He never asked to leave, he never wanted to and has had a nice life in New Zealand ever since. As well as the culture shock, how has your mother felt all these years not knowing where you were? Heartbreaking and his return home – probably the most remarkable journey you will ever read about.
“It’s a small regional city of less than a quarter of a million people, in the majority Hindu state of Madhya Pradesh a quiet area well known for its cotton, wheat and soybean farming”
Streetview Maps
A) Burhanpur - View and water tower
E) Tasmania - Hobart - Tranmere
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
Remarkable. That’s all I can say. I read this with tears in my eyes and can’t wait to see the film. That remarkable little boy (sorry for using this word again but I really can’t think of a better one) never gives up and manages to survive what must have been a extremely traumatic time. Being so young, so vulnerable and having to survive in such a big and bustling city – being careful not to succumbing to the evils of that city and finding a way home after so many years. Traumatic and heartbreaking in equal measure
This story is of course told through the eyes of Saroo himself and he speaks with such wide eyed innocence I felt I was right there with him willing him on and gasping at the moment he got lost. I was on tenterhooks when he describes going back and seeing his mum. Oh, my heart dropped on more than one occasion. You will need tissues throughout.
The threat of the Stoneman murders! The fact that the film Salaam Bombay reminds him of his own life…but the most memorable moment, person is Mrs Sood and the Brierley family. Everyone should know these people’s names.
The ultimate story of ‘Nava Jeevan’ – (New life’ in Hindi)
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Lion: A Long Way Home
Author/Guide: Saroo Brierley Destination: Calcutta, India. Hobart Departure Time: 1987 – 2012
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