| REEL FACE: | REAL FACE: |
Dev Patel
Born: April 23, 1990 Birthplace: Harrow, London, England, UK | Saroo Brierley
Born: 1981 Birthplace: Khandwa, India |
Nicole Kidman
Born: June 20, 1967 Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA | Sue Brierley
Birthplace: Tasmania, Australia |
David Wenham
Born: September 21, 1965 Birthplace: Marrickville, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | John Brierley
Birthplace: England, UK |
Divian Ladwa
| Mantosh Brierley
|
Priyanka Bose
| Kamala Khan
Birthplace: India |
Sunny Pawar
| Young Saroo Brierley
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Yes, the Lion true story confirms that she worked long hours carrying bricks and cement and was often gone for extended periods. Saroo had two older brothers, Guddu and Kullu, and a little sister, Shekila, whom he looked after while his brothers were out searching for coins and ways to earn money. -VanityFair.com
One evening when Saroo was 5 years old, he and his brother Guddu headed to the local railway station to search for loose change in the train compartments and on the floorboards. They got on a train to Burhanpur, which was about two hours away. After getting off at the station there, Saroo felt tired so his brother told him to rest on a bench, promising to return soon, but it was the last time he would see his brother.
When Saroo woke up at the station he did not see his brother. He panicked and jumped on the nearest train, figuring Guddu must be on board. "He was nowhere to be seen," Saroo told 60 Minutes. "I was really hoping that he was on the train, but he wasn't." Saroo did not know where the train was going. He fell into a fitful sleep. When he woke he didn't recognize anything outside the train window and he was completely alone. "I just cried and cried and called out to my brother, but he was never there. It was very daunting and scary." The train traveled more than 1,600 kilometers (994 miles), ending up in Calcutta (renamed Kolkata in 2001 to mirror its Bengali spelling) where he disembarked.
Saroo was illiterate. He didn't know his family's last name and he didn't know the name of the town where he lived. He never learned how to count to 10. -VanityFair.com
Yes. Saroo's memoir A Long Way Home provided the basis for the movie. In the bestselling book, he tells the story of how he became lost in India at age five and how he ended up being adopted by Sue and John Brierley, an Australian couple. His longing to know where he came from intensified after college, and he shares the ups and downs of using Google Earth to narrow down and eventually pinpoint his hometown in India, a place he hadn't seen in 25 years. In the book, he recounts what it was like to get on a plane and set off to find his family, the culmination of a journey that had spanned more than two decades.
The book contains plenty of pictures of Saroo, including as an orphan in India, meeting the Brierleys, growing up in Australia, and reuniting with his birth family as an adult. It even includes pictures from the photo book that the Brierleys prepared for Saroo prior to his adoption.
A man who spoke a little Hindi felt bad for Saroo and gave him shelter for three days. Not knowing what to do with the boy, he took Saroo to the local prison and they transferred him to a juvenile home the following day. A nonprofit child-welfare group known as the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption (ISSA) visited the home regularly and felt that Saroo was a good candidate for adoption. He was transferred to an orphanage, cleaned up, and taught how to eat with a knife and fork (a skill that could improve his chances of being adopted). Eventually, he was given the news that he was going to live with Sue and John Brierley, an Australian couple who had adopted him. Like in the movie, they sent a photo album to introduce themselves to Saroo. -VanityFair.com
Yes. In the Lion movie, Lucy, played by Rooney Mara, is an American girl that Saroo meets in a class (his ambition is to make lots of money in hotel management). Lucy mainly exists in the film to represent Saroo's current status. He was raised by white parents in Australia, a world that greatly contrasts the one into which he was born, and Lucy is there in the film to remind us of that. The character was inspired by Saroo's real-life girlfriend at the time, Lisa Williams, an Australian. Like in the movie, Saroo became more determined to locate his birthplace after he began dating Lisa, in part because she had a fast internet connection at her apartment.
After graduating from college and working on the web site for his parents' business, Saroo found himself longing to find his roots when he was healing from a bad breakup (he had spent years ignoring his past). It would take approximately six years of researching and studying Google Earth until he believed he found the area where he had lived as a child. He would stop periodically at times out of frustration. He had believed that he came from a suburb of Khandwa, India called Ginestlay. However, he eventually learned from an online Khandwa group that the suburb was likely Ganesh Talai. He had been mispronouncing it. -60 Minutes
When Saroo was reunited with his birth mother, he heard her say his name and realized he had been mispronouncing his own name all along. His given name is Sheru, which is Hindi for "lion." -A Long Way Home
Yes. Shortly after being reunited with his mother and family, Saroo asked her where his older brother Guddu was, the brother he had been with at the train station 25 years earlier. His mother broke the news that Guddu's body had been found just a month after Saroo had disappeared. Guddu was discovered on the train track, his arm had been severed and he was missing an eye. It is believed that he died the very same night that he was supposed to come back and get Saroo, which might explain why he never returned. It is also possible that Guddu had returned after Saroo had panicked and boarded the train, prompting Guddu to go looking for him. Saroo's mother never found out exactly what caused Guddu to fall from the train. Did he lose his balance? Was he pushed? She had lost two sons in an instant. Saroo said that no pictures exist of his brother, only memories of him. -60 Minutes
Discover more details about the Lion true story by watching the Saroo Brierley documentary and interviews below. The real Saroo recounts the story of how he ended up lost in India, and with the help of Google Earth, was able to locate his birth mother a quarter century later.