Saru, which means “lion” in Farsi, grew up in a poor family in Madhya Pradesh, India, with his mother, two brothers, and sister.
His father had left, and his mother, Fatima, struggled to support them alone. The children were often forced to find ways to make money themselves.
One night, five-year-old Saru went with his brother to look for food at a train station. Cold and tired, he fell asleep in an empty train, which departed unexpectedly.
When he awoke, he was terrified and far from home. After two days, the train arrived in West Bengal. Saru survived alone for weeks, begging and searching for food, but struggled as he spoke only Hindi in a Bengali-speaking area.
Eventually, he was taken to an orphanage, where he was adopted by an Australian couple.
Saru grew up in Tasmania with a supportive family, but he always remembered his past. Years later, using Google Earth, he retraced landmarks he remembered, eventually locating his hometown.
When Saru finally returned to India, he reunited with his mother, who had been searching for him for years. Today, Saroo Brierley, now a businessman and author, shares his story in *The Long Way Home*, which inspired the movie *Lion*.
