Saroo Brierley

As Saroo’s memoir explains, he was born in the small central Indian town of Khandwa to a Muslim father and a Hindu mother. He was their third child and was actually born with the name Sheru. 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. They were extremely poor, and Saroo and his siblings were often left home alone for days at a time. When he was five, he mistakenly boarded a train for the city of Calcutta, one of the most dangerous cities in India. He survived for weeks on the streets until he came to the attention of the authorities. 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. Within seven months, he was adopted by a family in Tasmania, Australia and became Saroo Brierley. He completed a degree in hospitality as a young man, but began working with his father in the family hosepipe business after graduating. 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 returned to Khandwa for the first time in 2011 and was able to reconnect with his mother, younger sister, and older brother. 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 lives in Hobart, Tasmania.