He was five years old when he slept on a bench in a small train station in central India. Saroo Brierley was with his older brother, Guddu. He had to wait for a few minutes. He fell asleep.
When he woke up, he was alone. He tried to find him, to call him, but he did not find him.
He jumped on a steady train, convinced his brother was in there. He sat down and fell asleep. Shortly after the train he left. He couldn't get off. There was no one to ask for help. For about 14 hours he traveled without knowing where he was going.
When the train stopped, Saroo was in Kolkata, over a thousand kilometers from home.
He didn't know the name of the village. He couldn't read. He couldn't say his last name. He had only a few confused memories: a water tower, a bridge, a river.
For weeks he lived on the street. He slept under the benches, fed leftovers in the bins, avoided adults trying to get him closer. He was eventually taken to an orphanage. No one could identify his family.
He was adopted by an Australian couple and moved to Tasmania. He grew up in a stable environment, learned a new language, went to school and built a different life. But those memories never disappeared.
In time they became increasingly clear. A route, a station, details that could not yet place.
As an adult, he really started looking. He used Google Earth. He departed from a precise idea: calculate the distance traveled from the train based on the hours of travel. He delimited a huge area and began to explore it point by point.
Every night he looked at satellite images. Station after station. Year after year.
In 2011 something changed. He recognized some places and details he had remembered since his childhood and finally managed to locate Ganesh Talai, in the Khandwa area.
He decided to leave. He arrived there without certainties. He walked through the streets following memories. He recognized some points. He returned to his childhood home and, thanks to the locals, managed to find his mother.
It was 25 years.
At that time, Saroo discovered what happened to his brother Guddu. The night they separated, Guddu had died hit by a train.
That family had lost two children on the same day. He found one after twenty-five years.
Saroo continued to hold both his lives together: the one in Australia and the one found in India. His story was then told in a book and in the film Lion.