A Long Way Home: A Memoir

Terrifying, sad, heartwarming, inspirational. These are words that describe the amazing story of Saroo Brierley. Saroo is an Indian born Australian businessman who was separated from his family at the age of five. Saroo was born in a small suburb of Khandwa, India called Ganesh Talai, which was an important place for him all his life including when he would initiate the long and tiresome search for his mother. A memoir of this account of his experiences was published in 2013 and called A Long Way Home.I remember hearing about this story a few years ago, when it broke on national television. It was a headline stating that a man had found his mother after 25 long years of separation. I had already known the basic frame of the story, so when I read the book it was very enjoyable getting details about what I had already known. Although this story wasn’t written by Saroo himself, ghost writer Larry Buttrose did an exceptional job at capturing the emotion and details of the journey. This story is one about the journey of a little boy who’s lost his family and doesn’t know how to get back to them.Saroo Brierley was only five years old when he had to endure the hardest challenge of his life. When Saroo’s father abandoned his family for another woman, Saroo was forced to move from the Hindi side of India to the Muslim side and met with terrible living conditions. A poverty-stricken neighborhood, with a mud house and the only form of electricity coming from a candle, Saroo’s family had to work very hard to support each other. Saroo’s mother Kamla would spend 6 days a week, gone all day collecting rocks for the village to support her family. This was hard and physical work that only a strong woman could endure. While reading this memoir, it was easy to see how strong Kamla really was, both emotionally and physically. Having to physically support the family and endure the loss of her son for 25 years, it became hard not to appreciate her efforts to keep her family strong. Although Kamla worked so hard to support Saroo and his brothers, it just wasn’t enough. Guddu, the eldest brother, went to work every day, washing dishes for many hours just to make only half a rupee. Anyhow, Saroo and his family ultimately resorted to begging for money at local markets, railways, and neighborhoods. Although this was a difficult time, there were moments that Saroo looked back on with attachment. These moments included playing with his brothers and sister. The author did a good job showing his appreciation for his older brother Guddu by adding little anecdotes about their good times. The journey took off when Saroo was going to work with Guddu. Guddu left him so he could work his shift and after that Saroo would not see his hometown of Ganesh Talai again for 25 years. It was truly amazing how he was able to find his way back to a place that he had no real memory of.Family was there for Saroo when times were tough, and it was clear that the importance of family was one of the main themes in this memoir. The author did an exceptional job at showing how much his family did to be able to support him by using many examples of his mother and brothers going out for long work days even if it meant earning enough to buy a simple loaf of bread. When reading this memoir, you can notice that Saroo constantly mentions how much he loves his family, and what they mean to him. “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.” As much as this memoir was about Saroo and his journey, much of this memoir was dedicated to his adoptive family. The author emphasized the importance of his adoptive parents and gave a good idea of what role they played for him following such a tragic loss of his biological family. “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. That meant a lot for a child like myself”. When Saroo talked about his adoptive parents it was difficult not to get emotional. His stylistic choice when he wrote about his adoptive parents had a very endearing tone to it. You could tell that these people meant a lot to him.As far as the layout of the book, it was very easy to follow as it was chronologically told starting with the earliest days in his childhood, to the separation from his mother and then onward to life with his adoptive parents and finally the search for his biological mother. The way the book was set up into two parts was effective in understanding the story. The author uses the first part of the book to explain the journey from his hometown to Australia and his adjustment to his new life while the second part is solely about the search for his old home. Personally, I felt that this was a good way to have divided the memoir as it allowed me to keep track with the story and understand it better.What struck me most about this memoir was how the author was able to take a tragic experience and truly connect with the reader on an emotional level. The way the author was able to take his story and make something out of it was remarkable. When I was five years old, I was in my playroom enjoying the company of action figures and toy blocks. The author was able to make me feel guilty for having such a good life by showing the struggle of this five-year-old boy losing his family with no money, no one to talk to and no way of how to find himself home. This story was truly inspirational, one of a kind of a kind and I would recommend it to anyone who loves a great read.

I'm pretty sure that almost everybody who reads this book, "Lion" by Saroo Brierley, is going to see the movie with Dev Patel. Or, has already seen it. The book, which was originally published under the title of "A Long Way Home: A Memoir", has been reissued as a tie-in for the newly released movie. "Lion" is the story of a journey a five year old boy makes by himself from his hometown in rural India, to the large city of Calcutta. (now, Kolkata) and after being lost in the streets of the huge city, is taken to an orphanage, where he is luckily adopted by an Australian family from Tasmania. He lives the next twenty years, happily with his new family, but always remembers the tragic journey and his mother and siblings he left behind in India. With the advent of Google maps, he's able to trace his birth family's village. He then travels back to India and is reunited with that family, while remaining close to his adopted family and life in Australia.That's basically Saroo Brierley's story and how he tells it in the book is interesting. But as I read it, I felt a bit of a remove from Brierley's telling it. Am I asking for more emotion, and if so, is that a fair request? I'm looking forward to seeing the movie next week, and there, on the screen, might be a more vivid recreation. I enjoyed reading the book, though.

A heartfelt and incredible story about this little boy. It was a great read, and I felt his emotions as he tried to survive .

When a five-year-old child falls asleep on a train in India, his life is changed forever. As he sleeps, the train transports him away from everything he knows. The child from a rural village awakes in the capital city of India, Calcutta, with all the dangers an urban setting brings. Used to begging for food, he manages to scavenge enough to survive, choosing to sleep each night with a group of holy men, thereby insuring his safety. The boy's name is "Sheru," which is the Hindu word for "lion." My first question was answered, for I could not see a connection between an African animal and a small child from India. Over time, Sheru becomes Saroo, the name he goes by today. After surviving about two months on the streets of Calcutta, Saroo ends up in an orphanage while authorities attempt to find his family. When no one comes forward to identify Saroo, he becomes available for adoption. Within a few months, a childless couple, the Brierleys, adopt Saroo and take him to Hobart, Tasmania, Australia to live. A few years later, the couple adopts another little Indian boy, Saroo's brother, Mantash. While life in Australia is a happy time for Saroo, he never forgets his Indian family, his mother, Kamla, named after the Hindu goddess of creation, Kamala, his two older brothers, Kallu and Guddu, and his younger sister, Shekila. The father of the family has married a second wife and has abandoned his first family, thereby leaving them pitifully poor. Kamla earns a meager living carrying construction bricks on her head, but all the children scavenge food and beg for money to survive. As the years go by, Saroo wonders if his memories of his previous life are accurate or merely the imaginings of a five-year-old. Saroo has his Australian friends and his Indian friends, and he becomes aware of the internet and Google Earth, a program that allows one to get a bird's eye view of geographic locations. It is then that Saroo decides to search for the neighborhood in which he grew up. After five years of meticulous searching and against all odds, on March 31, 2011, Saroo locates the house he grew up in! He begins to plan his visit to India twenty years after he left it. Concerned he will hurt the feelings of his adoptive parents, he gently refuses their requests to accompany him, feeling this is something he must do by himself.The rest of this book deals with the incredible reunion with his Indian family, how both his families meet, and how the product of two widely diverse cultures adjusts to a contented future. The years-long search could have ended in failure many times, but I believe Destiny played a major role in reuniting Saroo with his Indian family. It also speaks to the stubbornness of an individual who refuses to give up on the dream of finding his original family, assisted by countless people who offered opinions, encouragement, and other assistance when needed. I was especially impressed by Kamla's faith that her son would return if she simply stayed where he could find her. I highly recommend this book.