At the Rotary District Conference in Hobart, Saroo shared the extraordinary journey that inspired his bestselling memoir A Long Way Home and the award-winning film Lion.
Saroo’s story begins in rural India. He was just five years old, living in extreme poverty with his mother, two older brothers and a younger sister. After his father left, Saroo’s mother worked long hours as a labourer at construction sites, carrying bricks and water to support the family.
Saroo’s job was to look after his baby sister while his brothers travelled into nearby towns searching for food or small ways to earn money. Sometimes they sold scrap or fruit at railway stations. Sometimes they took risks simply to survive.
One evening, Saroo saw his older brother leaving home to head out again. Tired of staying behind to care for his sister, Saroo begged to come along. Eventually his brother agreed.
They travelled to the local railway station and boarded a train late at night. Exhausted, Saroo fell asleep on a seat.
When he woke up, his brother was gone.
Confused and frightened, the five-year-old wandered through the station searching for him. Seeing a train nearby, he climbed aboard, believing his brother might be on it.
Instead, Saroo had unknowingly boarded an empty train that would carry him nearly 1,600 kilometres across India, eventually arriving in the enormous and unfamiliar city of Kolkata.
Suddenly alone in a city of millions, Saroo could not speak the local language and had no way of explaining where he came from. He spent weeks surviving on the streets and sleeping in train stations, scavenging food from rubbish bins and trying desperately to find a way home.
Eventually he was taken to a local police station and then transferred to an orphanage. With no way to identify his family, Saroo was placed into the international adoption system.
His life changed forever when he was adopted by Sue and John Brierley, a couple living in Hobart, Tasmania.
Arriving in Australia as a small boy, Saroo embraced his new life, family and education. But even as he grew up, a quiet question remained in the back of his mind: Where was home? And what had happened to the family he left behind?
Years later, while studying in Canberra, Saroo discovered Google Earth.
Using only fragmented childhood memories of train journeys, landscapes and landmarks, he began painstakingly scanning satellite images of India night after night. For nearly five years he searched.
Finally, one evening, he recognised something familiar — a railway station that matched the memory in his mind.
Following that clue led him to a small town called Khandwa. Saroo travelled back to India and walked through the streets guided only by childhood memories.
Within minutes, he found his old neighbourhood.
And then, incredibly, he found his mother.
After 25 years apart, Saroo was reunited with the family who had believed they had lost him forever.
His remarkable story was later shared with the world through his memoir A Long Way Home, which became the basis for the Oscar-nominated film Lion, starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman.
Today Saroo reflects on his journey with gratitude for both families in his life — the mother who gave him life in India and the mother who gave him a second chance in Australia.
As Saroo told the audience:
"Sometimes catching the wrong train can take you to the right destination."
