Long Way Home

by Saroo Brierly

  She asked me about both of my mothers and then asked a social worker she worked with, Soumeta Medhora, to find my adoption file. While they talked about where it might be, I looked at the pin-up boards on the walls covered with pictures of smiling children.

  Mrs. Sood had been working to help children in need in this same office for thirty-seven years. In that time, she had arranged adoptions for around two thousand Indian children, some to families in India and others to families overseas. She had a daughter of her own, a successful businesswoman who told people that she had “donated her mother” to the work of adoption.

  Born in Delhi, Mrs. Sood gained a law degree and became interested in adoption. She arranged her first adoption within India in 1963, and three years later succeeded in assisting a Swedish exchange student, Madeleine Kats, to adopt an Indian girl in Sweden. Kats became a journalist, and when she wrote of her experience and mentioned Mrs. Sood, other people from abroad started asking for her help to arrange adoptions. And so it all began.

  Mrs. Sood moved to Calcutta, receiving training from the Missionaries of Charity, the order that Mother Teresa founded; indeed, she was blessed by Mother Teresa herself. She gained some other influential patrons—the president of the All India Women’s Conference, and a renowned independence freedom fighter, Ashoka Gupta—and with their support registered ISSA in 1975. Seven years later, the organization set up the orphanage I stayed in, Nava Jeevan, meaning “new life.”

  Mrs. Sood told me that my adoption had gone through easily, especially compared to the average international adoption today. She said that intercountry adoption was now managed by a central authority rather than directly through agencies like ISSA, but that measures designed to “streamline” procedures had instead made the process ever more complicated and lengthy.

  It now commonly took a year, and sometimes as long as five years, for all the paperwork, arrangements, and procedures to be finalized. I could feel her frustration, and I knew that Mum felt the same way—she had become a passionate advocate for making international adoption easier after going through the delays in adopting Mantosh and seeing how the extra time in adverse circumstances had affected him.

  In 1987, when Mum and Dad had received approval for adoption, they met with an ISSA staff member escorting adoptees to Australia, who showed them my file. They immediately agreed they would take me. Two weeks later Mrs. Sood visited them herself, on a trip to escort my fellow Nava Jeevan adoptees Abdul and Musa, and brought back the photo book my new parents had prepared for me.

  I asked Mrs. Sood whether it was unusual for families abroad who adopted an Indian child to adopt a second, even if they were not related. She said it was quite common—the first child would get lonely, or culturally isolated, or the parents just enjoyed the experience so much, they wanted to repeat it.

  Tea was brought, and while we drank it together, Mrs. Medhora returned with my file and I was able to see the agency’s actual documents of my adoption. The pages were a little faded and fragile, almost as if they could fall apart at a touch. Attached to the file was a photograph of me in Australia, which my parents had sent after I arrived. I was grinning and holding a golf club, standing in front of an old-fashioned golf buggy. There was also a photocopy of my passport, with its photograph of the six-year-old me looking steadily into the camera. My official documents and passport all had my name as “Saru,” which is how it had been recorded since I arrived in the police station. It was Mum and Dad who had decided “Saroo” was a more Anglicized spelling, more like it sounded.

  The file revealed that I had come to the attention of the authorities in Calcutta after I was accepted into the custody of officers at Ultadanga Police Station on April 21, 1987. I was assessed and taken to Liluah, the juvenile home, where I was classified as a child in need of care. There were two other categories for children at Liluah—those whose parents had come to the attention of the police and courts, and those who themselves had committed offenses—and we were all bunked in together.

  The picture of what happened to me then became a little clearer. I had been in Liluah for one month and then handed over to the care of ISSA at a hearing in the Juvenile Court on May 22. Mrs. Sood would regularly visit Liluah to ask about new admissions needing care and, where appropriate, she would apply to the court to have them handed over temporarily to ISSA. Her agency was given two months to find the child’s family and reunite them or have an orphaned child declared “free” to be adopted into a new family. If these efforts were unsuccessful, the child would have to return and remain in Liluah, although ISSA could continue to pursue their case. This was Mantosh’s fate, as it took ISSA two years to untangle the difficulties within his family and have him released for adoption.

  In my case, staff at ISSA took a photo of me—the first I’d ever had taken—and it was published on June 11 in a Bengali daily newspaper with a notification that I was a lost child. On June 19 they published it in the Oriya Daily, a widely read newspaper published in the state of Orissa (now known as Odisha), because they thought I might have boarded the train in the coastal city of Brahmapur. Of course, there was no response—it was miles away from where I actually lived. I was therefore officially declared a “neglected child” and was formally made “free” for adoption, after my agreement, on June 26.

  My case for adoption by the Brierleys came up for hearing on August 24 and was approved—so I was in Nava Jeevan for two months. I was issued a passport on September 14, departed India on September 24, and arrived in Melbourne the following day, September 25, 1987. From the moment the teenager with the handcart had taken me into the police station until the moment I stepped off the aircraft in Melbourne, the entire process had taken only a little over five months. Mrs. Sood said that if I was being adopted now, the process would take years. Mrs. Medhora corrected a misconception I’d had about how I had come to be chosen for release from Liluah, which I thought was because I had been in good health. The real reason was because I’d been lost—ISSA’s first intention had been to reunite me with my parents. Children with disabilities of all kinds were released from Liluah if it was thought there was a possibility they could be reunited with their families. Soon after my adoption went through, ISSA had managed to reunite two other lost children with their families after placing ads in the newspapers. But I’d simply had too little information for them to start a meaningful search.

  In fact, they didn’t even know that I’d spent some weeks on the streets of Kolkata. Confused and no doubt a little frightened about what was happening to me, I’d just answered the questions that were put to me. And even if they’d asked me directly about it, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell them much—I was poor and uneducated, and my language was too limited to be able to communicate much. ISSA had only learned that I’d been on the streets years later, when Mum told them after she’d learned about it from me. Mrs. Sood said they had been astounded. Most couldn’t imagine a five-year-old from a small town surviving on the streets of Kolkata alone for a few days, let alone several weeks. I had been incredibly lucky.

  After Mrs. Sood and I had said our fond good-byes, and I’d thanked her again for everything she’d done for me, a driver took Mrs. Medhora, my interpreter, and me down yet more congested roads, past a new metro train line under construction, to a quiet residential street of apartment blocks in the northern suburbs, looking for Nava Jeevan. In fact, the orphanage had moved to a new location, and the building I knew as Nava Jeevan was now used as a free day-care center for children of poor working mothers.

  At first I was convinced we’d come to the wrong place. Mrs. Medhora tried to reassure me, but I was so certain of my memories that I thought she must have become confused with all the moving the orphanage had done over the years. It turned out that I didn’t recognize the second story of the building because I’d never been in it—only babies lived upstairs.

  When I went into the downstairs quarters, I found the Nava Jeevan I remembered. There were a dozen or so yo
ung children taking their afternoon nap stretched out on mats on the floor. These kids, though, were collected by their mothers and taken home at the end of the day.

  Two more places to visit remained. First, we went to the Juvenile Court in which I was pronounced an orphan, in a suburban satellite town oddly named Salt Lake City, about half an hour’s drive from central Kolkata. It was a dingy, nondescript building, and I didn’t stay there long, on either visit. The second, though, was the Liluah home. Given my less than happy experiences there, it had promised to be a difficult visit, which I think was why I’d left it till last. I hadn’t exactly been looking forward to seeing it again, though I knew my visit to the Kolkata of my childhood wouldn’t be complete without it.

  Once again ISSA kindly provided a car and driver, and we crossed the landmark Howrah Bridge and went past Howrah Station, threading our way through narrow alleyways to reach the imposing building—almost a fortress. As the car pulled up outside, I saw again the massive red rusted gates that I have never been able to forget, with the small hatchway entrance to one side, just like a prison. The gate was immense in my childhood memory, and was still imposing now. The high brick walls were topped with metal spikes and jagged glass.

  By now, as the blue sign over the entrance informed me, it had become a “Home for Girls and Women.” Boys were sent elsewhere. Although it looked the same, and there were still guards on duty outside, it felt a little less brutal somehow—perhaps it was just that this time I was here as a visitor.

  Mrs. Medhora had arranged for us to be admitted, so we went straight through a little doorway. Inside we came across a large pond that I barely remembered being there. The buildings appeared smaller and much less menacing than they had. But something about the atmosphere still made it feel like a place you would want to get out of as soon as possible.

  We made a tour and I saw the same kinds of bunk-lined halls in which I had slept and dreamed of release. I would never have imagined when I left here that I would one day willingly return, yet here I was now, looking over the place, a tourist to my old terrors. But more than any other visit I made, Liluah put the pain of that past to rest at last. As I stood there, I thought about the time outsiders had breached what looked like a fortress, and wondered how that could have happened without someone turning a blind eye. No doubt there needed to be stricter controls in place to avoid such blights on the system. I felt more than thankful that I had survived my stay here and got out relatively unscathed. And I was glad to realize that it would be close to impossible for an outsider to sneak in now.

  There was one last visit I had to make—not a particular building but an area. On my final day in Kolkata I returned to the streets near Howrah Station and the little group of cheap cafes and shops that still clung to the top of the banks of the Hooghly River. It remained a place for the less well-off, workers on a pittance, homeless people. There was still no sanitation, and a lot of people lived in makeshift lean-tos and stalls in the area. I walked around the shop stalls, recalling how I used to smell the mouthwatering fruits and fried foods on sale here, and marveled that I had been able to detect them at all over the stench of human waste mingled with diesel and petrol fumes and smoke from cooking fires.

  I walked down to look at the river’s edge, but the area between the shops and the water seemed to have been divided up into private housing plots. Just as I was trying to work out a way through, several mangy-looking dogs came my way up a little alley, nosing past my legs, and I decided I didn’t want to put my anti-rabies shot to the test. I don’t mind dogs on leashes, but to let these strays get close seemed risky. Instead, I took the footpath away from the row of shops to the impressive steel span of the Howrah Bridge, and before long joined the stream of people at the start of its pedestrian walkway, which links the city of Howrah with central Kolkata. When I first crossed it, I was escaping my terrifying experience with the men from the railway shack. Now I knew the bridge was a major Kolkata landmark, probably the best known in the city. It was one of the last major British projects before India achieved independence in 1947.

  The masses of humanity crossing it, and the stream of vehicles of all kinds, were incredible. People pushed behind me and rushed toward me. Bearers moved to and from the railway station like ants walking to and from their nests, with astonishingly bulky loads balanced perfectly on their heads. Beggars lined the railing along the walkway, raising their steel bowls and amputated limbs and adding their chants to the boisterous noise of the bridge. The scale of human presence and activity almost made the bridge a community in itself. But the crowds also started to make me feel insignificant, as though I didn’t exist.

  How small I must have felt when I crossed it as a little kid.

  The traffic noise was tremendous and there were clouds of blue smoke rising, momentarily cloaking the scene. I’d read that living with the air pollution of Sydney or Melbourne can reduce your life span, so I could only wonder by how much your life would be shortened here, breathing in this kind of pollution day in and day out.

  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 f
ood—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.