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. Practices like these are what child’s-rights advocates overwhelmingly wish to stop.Book Info: (Courtesy of Author’s Website) This can, in some cases, lead to a practice known as baby stealing, where people actually kidnap infants to feed the international adoption market. and Australia included, infants and babies under a year old are in extremely high demand for adoption, while older children such as Saroo and Mantosh are overwhelmingly not adopted-though children in their age group make up the majority of adoptable children in many countries. Each country sets its own rules and guidelines for adoption, which can make navigating those rules especially challenging for prospective parents. The first international law governing international adoption was passed months after Saroo’s adoption went through in 1987, and two more have followed in the years since. Legally, the second view has more traction. Some people, such as Sue Brierley (Saroo’s adoptive mother), believe that international adoption should be made easier and be less regulated so that more people will feel able to do it, while others take a child’s-rights standpoint and insist that there need to be more regulations guiding international adoption. The subject of international adoption can be a tricky one. He’s been back several times since, and is doing what he can to help his nieces and nephews, buy his mother a house, and support the orphanage in Calcutta that facilitated his adoption. He returned to Khandwa for the first time in 2011 and was able to reconnect with his mother, younger sister, and older brother. While he was in college, he began using Google Earth to look for his hometown, and he finally succeeded after five years of searching. He completed a degree in hospitality as a young man, but began working with his father in the family hosepipe business after graduating. Within seven months, he was adopted by a family in Tasmania, Australia and became Saroo Brierley. The birthday he celebrates is one given to him by the Calcutta authorities they estimated the year, and the month and day are the date that he arrived at the orphanage. He survived for weeks on the streets until he came to the attention of the authorities. When he was five, he mistakenly boarded a train for the city of Calcutta, one of the most dangerous cities in India. They were extremely poor, and Saroo and his siblings were often left home alone for days at a time. His father effectively left the family when Saroo was very young, so Saroo, his brothers, and their mother had to do whatever they could to support the family. He was their third child and was actually born with the name Sheru. As Saroo’s memoir explains, he was born in the small central Indian town of Khandwa to a Muslim father and a Hindu mother.
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