![]() Groggy and dazed, he wandered onto a waiting passenger train, assuming that Guddu must have been waiting for him inside. Don’t go anywhere.” But when Saroo woke up later that night, his brother was gone. “I’m just going to go off and do something,” Guddu told him. Guddu took his hand and led him to a bench. Though he only found peanut shells, Saroo was happy just to be with his favourite brother.īy the time they hopped off the train at Burhanpur, Saroo felt exhausted and told his brother he needed to nap before they caught the next train back. The two got on a train to Burhanpur, about two hours away, and began scouring the floorboards for money as the train pulled away. Saroo rode for 30 minutes on the back of his brother’s rickety bicycle. But he was home.Įarly one evening, not long after, Guddu agreed to take his little brother to the railway station to search the compartments for change. He was out of breath and nearly out of eggs, so many had cracked and oozed through his shirt. He retraced the journey – through the dusty streets, turning past the cows and the cars, a right here near the fountain, a left there by the dam – until he stood panting at his doorstep. But he had a keen sense of direction and paid attention to his surroundings. He didn’t know the name of the town he lived in or his family’s surname. ![]() As the boys made their way out of the coop – holding their shirts like hammocks, full of eggs – two security guards came after them, and they were separated. One day, Guddu took little Saroo on a road he’d never seen before, to a factory where Guddu had heard that they might be able to steal eggs. Guddu, then aged nine, had assumed his role as the man of the house and spent his days searching passenger trains for fallen coins. His father had abandoned the family two years earlier. He lived there with his mother, Kamala, who worked long hours carrying bricks and cement, two older brothers, Guddu and Kullu, and a younger sister, Shekila. When night fell, he would walk three kilometres home to a tiny mud-brick house with a tin roof. He played barefoot under the downpour as trains passed nearby. ‘An incredible story of how one boy survived and prevailed through extreme circumstances to change his fortunes.IT was just a small river flowing over a dam wall, but to five-year-old Saroo Munshi Khan it felt like a waterfall. ‘A remarkable story … provides an informative and fascinating insight into how Third World families live with, and somehow survive, their poverty.’ ‘We urge you to step behind the headlines and have a read of this absorbing account … With clear recollections and good old-fashioned storytelling, Saroo … recalls the fear of being lost and the anguish of separation.’ ![]() ‘★★★★★ I literally could not put this book down … return journey will leave you weeping with joy and the strength of the human spirit.’ 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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |