A Long Way Home

by Saroo Brierley

  Around a third of the way across the bridge, I stopped at the railing and looked back at the riverbank, to a place below the station and the shops, the area where I had somehow survived as a boy. Now there was a ferry jetty in the place I had walked along, and underneath the bridge the bank had been concreted. I couldn’t see if the sadhus could still sleep there. I hadn’t seen many sadhus during my return visits to India, but I didn’t know if theirs was a lifestyle in decline or if it was just coincidental. I made a mental note to research this later. Those men felt like guardians to me when I’d slept near them or their shrines.

  I looked down at the stone steps—the ghats—that led into the powerful tidal waters of the Hooghly, at the place where I had almost drowned, twice, and I thought about the homeless man who had plucked me from the water both times. He would almost certainly be dead by now. But like the teenager who later took me to the police station, he had given me another chance to live. He hadn’t profited from his act in any way—unless he was a believer in karma—and I had never thanked him. I was too embarrassed and frightened by the attention when he pulled me out the second time. So as I stood there at the railing looking down at my past, I thanked that man, and then I thanked him again as the sun began to set and my last day in Kolkata ended in a smoky pink-gray haze.

  It was time to go home.

  Epilogue

  The moment when my two mothers met for the first time was an incredible milestone. When the idea of filming their introduction had been floated by 60 Minutes in Australia, to be featured as the centerpiece of a story about my experiences, I found myself once again apprehensive. There always seemed to be another emotional journey ahead of me yet to be traveled. Would Mum feel somehow less bonded to me when she met the woman who had given me birth? Would she worry that Kamla, my mother, might demand my return? Would Kamla find it impossible to connect with Mum, or feel awkward about being thrust together with her in front of the cameras? I knew Mum was nervous about that, as well as about what would, amazingly, be her first visit to India.

  Of course, I had always wanted to bring my two families together, and they had all spoken of looking forward to such a meeting. Despite finding the prospect a little daunting, I was disappointed my dad wasn’t able to join us this time. For now, it was to be my mothers laying eyes on each other for the first time.

  When the moment arrived in Ganesh Talai, with the 60 Minutes crew in tow, time seemed to stand still. All concerns washed away as I watched my mothers—who had given me not just one life but two—embracing with tears in their eyes. How many events since I was a little boy had lined up to lead to this day? It was staggering.

  We communicated through a translator, but the joy and love we shared didn’t need much translation.

  Mum greatly admired the strength of Kamla in surviving the many struggles of her life. It gives me great pleasure to be able to help my mother in India, however I can, including taking care of her rent and buying food—whatever might make things more comfortable for her. Typically, she resists, insisting that all she cares about is having me back in her life. Despite her soft protests, now that I have secured the dual citizenship that permits me to buy property within India, I plan to buy her a better home in Ganesh Talai, near her friends. Patience is required when doing business in the poor village, and I’m waiting on the paperwork, but Kallu, Shekila, and I have found Kamla a place just around the corner from where she waited for me all this time. We look forward to helping her move into her own home—her first.

  I am also devoting time to helping another incredibly important woman in my life, without whom it would be unlikely that I would be here to write my story: Saroj Sood. I am assisting with repairs to the Nava Jeevan orphanage for abandoned babies and lost children. Words can’t properly express my gratitude to Mrs. Sood and her dedicated staff at ISSA. If I can help her with her mission to care for children who find themselves in situations similar to that which befell me, I will do everything I can.

  My desires for myself are less clear. Even as I poured all my efforts into tracking down my hometown and family, I was never searching in the hope of somehow getting back to the life I had missed. It wasn’t a matter of needing to right a wrong, nor one of wanting to return to where I “belong.” I grew up almost all of my life in Australia, and I have family bonds here that cannot be challenged or broken.

  I wanted to know where I came from—to be able to look at a map and point to the place where I was born—and to throw light on some of the circumstances of my past. Most of all, though I tried to keep my expectations in check as insurance against disappointment, I hoped to find my Indian family so they would know what had happened to me. My bonds with them can never be broken, and I am deeply grateful that I now have the opportunity to renew our connection.

  But I am not conflicted about who I am or where to call home. I now have two families, not two identities. I am Saroo Brierley.

  Nonetheless, revisiting India and seeing the lives of my siblings and my mother has been a culturally enriching experience as well as a personal one. I look at my brother and sister, particularly, and admire their traditional focus on family and relationships. It is difficult to put in words, but I feel that perhaps there is something in the West we have lost in our impersonal suburbs and emphasis on individualism. I am not a religious person, and that likely won’t change in a major way, but I am keen to learn more about the customs and beliefs of my Indian family, and to see if they offer some guidance for me.

  I am also delighted to have met my niece and nephews, and I look forward to being a part of their lives and to provide them with whatever opportunities I am able to.

  Had I not become lost—not gone out that night with Guddu, or somehow found my way home soon after—my life would have been hugely different, of course. Much suffering could have been avoided. My family would not have endured the heartbreak of a missing son, on top of the tragic death of another, and I would not have known the pain of separation and the cold fear that struck me in the train or on the Kolkata streets.

  But my experiences have undoubtedly shaped who I am today, providing me with an unshakable faith in the importance of family—however it is formed—and a belief in the goodness of people and the importance of grasping opportunities as they are presented. I wouldn’t wish to erase any of that. It’s true, too, that my Indian family has received opportunities they would not have had otherwise had none of this taken place. I feel strongly that there is an element of destiny in these events, intertwining my two families, with me as the linchpin.

  I know my mum and dad wouldn’t wish for their lives to have been different, either, without me and Mantosh. I am unspeakably grateful to them for the love—and the life—they have given me, and I have nothing but admiration for their commitment to helping others who are less fortunate. I am confident that my finding my Indian home will bring my Australian family closer together rather than making anyone question our connection.

  When I told Mantosh that I had found my family, he was naturally very happy for me. Some news of his sadly fractured family has filtered through to us from ISSA, and Mantosh has found my success in reuniting with my Indian family inspiring. Despite the painful memories of his childhood, and his struggles growing up, he has renewed his interest in trying to reconnect with his Indian mother. We’re not sure if it is possible, but I would like nothing more than to see my brother achieve some of the peace of mind granted to me.

  I was also delighted to celebrate my good fortune with Asra. In the early years, with our families having become firm friends, we kept in touch by phone quite often, and occasionally visited each other’s homes interstate. Although we lost touch a little as we got older, as people do, we still catch up every now and then, with news of jobs, relationships, and life in general. There are some aspects of my experiences that only Asra and I can share, and I consider myself lucky to have such a friend.

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  When I look back at the process of my rediscovering Khandwa—the Google Earth searches that consumed me, in particular—I realize that I could have approached things differently, and might possibly have found what I was looking for more quickly. I could have been more forensic about the various “Burhanpur”-type towns and cities that appeared on maps, and could have considered those farther across the country from Kolkata. It’s possible that deeper Internet searches might have ruled out some of these places straightaway, or at least narrowed the field. I might also have restricted my searches to train lines near a short list of “B” towns rather than pedantically tracing all routes out from Howrah Station to a roughly calculated perimeter, even if there was a juggernaut logic to my methods. Perhaps that would have delivered Khandwa more quickly, perhaps not. We all know what they say about hindsight.

  But I went about my search the best way I could at the time. I don’t have any regrets about how things transpired, with the exception of my brother’s tragic death. I am astonished at the miraculous turns in my story—my mum’s vision that led her to intercountry adoption, my Indian mother praying and seeing an image of me the day before we were reunited. Even the remarkable coincidence of finding myself at school in a place called Howrah. It is sometimes difficult not to imagine some forces at work that are beyond my understanding. While I don’t have any urge to convert that into religious belief, I feel strongly that from my being a little lost boy with no family to becoming a man with two, everything was meant to happen just the way it happened. And I am profoundly humbled by that thought.

  My Journey Across India

  The two most likely rail routes from Burhanpur to Kolkata (assuming only one train change, or perhaps none), although I will never know for certain which was the one I had taken as a child. No one suspected I had been transported so far, which cruelly hindered all efforts to find my home and family. In 2012, I rode the Kolkata Mail, crossing the country in much greater comfort.

  After being picked up off the streets of Kolkata in 1987, I spent two months at the Nava Jeevan orphanage, run by the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption (ISSA). I’m in the striped T-shirt (left), with my friend Asra standing beside me on the caged front porch (right). ISSA ran lost notices in the newspapers (top), unaware that my home was much farther away from the areas they were trying to reach.

  The photo book prepared by my new parents, the Brierleys, which I was shown at Nava Jeevan to familiarize myself with them and my new home.

  With a passport featuring an invented birthday of May 22, 1981, I left for Australia with other adoptees and official escorts, including ISSA’s Saroj Sood, sitting with Asra and me on her lap. This was my first experience of the eye-opening luxury of hotels.

  I arrived in Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport in my Tasmania T-shirt and proceeded with the escorts and other children to a VIP room, where our new parents were waiting. Mum and Dad welcomed me with a book and a stuffed koala bear. I’m still holding the remains of the chocolate bar we were given on the plane—my first word to my new parents was “Cadbury.”

  The first maps in my life—the wall map of India I grew up with in my room (seen here as it was prepared for my arrival), and the map of my hometown that my mother drew with me in her notebook when at age seven I first told her the story of how I became lost.

  I had a happy life growing up in Hobart with my new family, which soon included my younger adopted brother, Mantosh. Below, he sits at the computer next to my friend and fellow Nava Jeevan adoptee, Asra, who occasionally visited from Victoria. Like many teenagers, I had rock star ambitions.

  I didn’t know the name of my childhood hometown. But several years at the computer, searching with Google Earth, led to my incredible discoveries: first, Burhanpur Railway Station (above)—with its familiar water tower—from which I accidentally boarded the train that took me across the country; and then, up to the line, the familiar layout of my hometown itself (below).

  From the satellite view of my search to returning to India to retrace my steps on the ground: the dam by the rail bridge on the southern outskirts of my hometown (opposite, top left); the park fountain, the rail underpass, and the railway station (opposite); and the now-abandoned home in which I grew up in the town’s poor neighborhood (above). Today I dwarf the front door.

  My mother, Kamla, and I were reunited after twenty-six years at her modest dwelling (right) just around the corner from where we used to live. She had remained in the neighborhood in the hope I might one day return.

  Reuniting with my family was an overwhelming experience. My older brother, Kallu, and younger sister, Shekila, returned home to meet me.

  The train carriage I was trapped on was something like the one above and at right—although in those days, the benches on second-class carriages were wooden and not cushioned. I will never be exactly certain of the route I was taken on across India from Burhanpur to Kolkata, but I made the journey again as an adult with a top-class ticket (top).

  In Kolkata, I found Saroj Sood (above, seated far left) in the same ISSA office from which she’d arranged my adoption a quarter of a century before. My ISSA file notes: “We consulted Saru if he would like us to look for a new family for him, and to this he agreed readily.” In the next room (below left), new orphans napped on floor mats.

  It was all too easy to see how a small child was ignored inside the huge and busy Howrah Station (above). Below are the imposing walls and iron gates of the Liluah juvenile home, where I was originally sent after being picked up off the streets. It is now a home for women and girls only, so I wasn’t permitted to take photographs inside.

  In my first weeks on the streets, I never strayed far from the distinctive red block of Howrah Station, seen from Howrah Bridge (below). The bridge is a monumental structure, which loomed over me when I survived weeks living on or around the banks of the Hooghly River.

  My two families, which make me feel doubly blessed. (Top) Mum and Dad (John and Sue Brierley) and my brother, Mantosh. (Bottom) Rear, from left: my brother, Kallu, his wife, Nasim, their daughter, Norin, my mother, Kamla, and my sister, Shekila. Front, from left: Shekila’s son, Ayan, and Kallu’s sons Shail and Sameer.

  Acknowledgments

  I offer my deep gratitude to both my families for allowing me to tell their stories as part of mine, and for their openhearted support and assistance in the production of this book. I also thank Lisa for her love and patience during the process.

  I am indebted to Saroj Sood for her contribution to my life as well as her help with the book, and to Soumeta Medhora. I would also like to thank Cheryl and Rochak for the help they provided, and especially Swarnima for being so giving of her time and for her friendship.

  Finally, I would like to thank Andrew Fraser at Sunstar Entertainment for his guidance; Larry Buttrose, Ben Ball, and Michael Nolan at Penguin Australia; and Kerri Kolen at Penguin USA.