From surviving on the streets of one of the most impoverished cities in the world at the time, to wandering the streets of India 25 years later in search of his lost childhood all from the comfort of his home in Tasmania, the absorbing account of Saroo Brierley epitomizes the essence of human determination, hope, and survival. Through the perspective of a five year-old living in the poverty-stricken village of Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh of India, Brierley takes the audience of an exploration of how he coped with hunger on a daily basis and the horrifying feeling of being lost in a foreign city with no knowledge of where you are. After surviving a treacherous three weeks while homeless in Calcutta, Brierley was sent to an orphanage run by The Indian Society for sponsorship & Adoption. Upon there, he made the life-changing decision to be accepted into a family from Tasmania, thereby coming to terms with never seeing his mother or his baby sister, Shekila whom he was responsible for back at home, ever again. Twenty-five years later due to the miraculous and ingenious invention of Google Earth, Brierley utilized this application to match images of hundreds of villages throughout the vast and overpopulated country of India to his childhood memories. Although these memories had haunted him for years after being adopted, causing trauma that would wake him up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, his hope to reunite with his past life had dissipated these fears. Returning to the village that he had once started from as a child, Brierley came to peace with the anticipation and dreams that had lingered throughout his whole life and within the minds of the audience while reading each line of this page-turning novel. The captivating true story of Brierley’s journey intrigues the reader and teaches an important lesson that perseverance and the undying love of family can make dreams become a reality “miracles...doable”. What really sets this story apart from the millions of other books published each year is the theme of persistent hope and utter human determination. In a Rocky-Balboa-like fashion, Brierley never lost sight of his goals and refused to back down when conflict came his way, whether it faced him on the streets of Calcutta or of Google Earth searching for his past life. For seven years straight, Brierley would spend hours on the computer in attempt to connect flashbacks of childhood memories to the street-view images produced from the Google application. At any moment of time, Brierley would have surrendered on his venture to find his home village and reunite with his family. On any given day could that have been the moment where he decided to give up, his miracle would have never occurred, and we would be discussing another successful story. However, he went that extra mile, like Rocky Balboa would, and kept persevering through all the emotions of fear, doubt, and surrender. Among all those haunting emotions, a glimmer of hope guided him in the direction of fate with the dream of reunion and clarity at the end of that final round. This enthralling tale of tenacity and the work of the miraculous is inspirational to all those searching for something in their lives, whether to reclaim again or to achieve among all odds. Along with the heart-felt plot line and encouraging themes that have most family audiences ready to adopt a child from India themselves, another stimulating characteristic of the story was the riveting three weeks of survival for the lost five-year-old Brierley. I think most 21st century Americans would agree that if we were placed in the middle of the destitute ghetto of Calcutta, most of us would not be able to survive for more than a week, especially without our vital iPhones and technology. However, individuals with the same never-say-die attitude as Brierley would continue to persevere and resort back to our innate, neanderthal instincts to survive in the battle that is man versus nature at its finest. Take a moment to imagine a child, maybe a relative or one passing by, who is about five years old being plucked from their petite kindergarten classroom and into the middle of a poverty-stricken, grimy city forced to sleep in a pile of trash underneath railroad tracks for nearly a month. Much different than that kindergarten classroom, or even our first-world lives, right? The young Brierley being lost at that time and removed from his family allow us readers to reminisce on a time when they felt lost and alone in our lives. Brierley symbolizes our inner selves, placed right in the center of our most dramatic crises, trying to navigate our way back to sanity and comfort with an overbearing hunger for knowledge and looming trepidation at every corner. We are so absorbed into this story because of the innocence that we see in ourselves, our childlike minds struggling to breathe and survive, and our souls a mirror to the young Indian boy. Sometimes we must face the dead end of the path before us, coming to terms with horrid conclusions and blindly taking the next step into the future, as did Brierley when agreeing to live with the “white” Australian parents with the “big, shiny house” and realizing, at such a young age, the improbability of returning to his former life. Brierley’s fascinating life-story, that leaves audiences compulsively yearning for more, also leaves many awake at night comparing the “problems” to the actual third-world traumatic experiences that occur every day. For me, this story put my life into perspective and how fortunate I am without having any control over receiving this gift. While most American teenagers tend to complain about the Wifi to their thousand-dollar devices not loading one second quicker than they would prefer, children such as Brierley are forced to fight against a different type of enemy every day---hunger, poverty, abuse, and death. In a world where most Americans “can’t even” with their minuscule first-world daily dilemmas, Brierley opens their eyes, without any warning, into the hair-raising reality that encompasses most of the world’s population throughout history. Speaking for the community of loyal fans to this riveting story, I would like to give a tremendous thank you to Saroo Brierley for opening our minds and enlightening our souls to the spine-chilling struggles of others, so that we may appreciate every moment with those that we love, as truly nothing else is more integral to survival and the essence of life.
What really sets this story apart from the millions of other books published each year is the theme of persistent hope and utter human determination. In a Rocky-Balboa-like fashion, Brierley never lost sight of his goals and refused to back down when conflict came his way, whether it faced him on the streets of Calcutta or of Google Earth searching for his past life. For seven years straight, Brierley would spend hours on the computer in attempt to connect flashbacks of childhood memories to the street-view images produced from the Google application. At any moment of time, Brierley would have surrendered on his venture to find his home village and reunite with his family. On any given day could that have been the moment where he decided to give up, his miracle would have never occurred, and we would be discussing another successful story. However, he went that extra mile, like Rocky Balboa would, and kept persevering through all the emotions of fear, doubt, and surrender. Among all those haunting emotions, a glimmer of hope guided him in the direction of fate with the dream of reunion and clarity at the end of that final round. This enthralling tale of tenacity and the work of the miraculous is inspirational to all those searching for something in their lives, whether to reclaim again or to achieve among all odds.
Along with the heart-felt plot line and encouraging themes that have most family audiences ready to adopt a child from India themselves, another stimulating characteristic of the story was the riveting three weeks of survival for the lost five-year-old Brierley. I think most 21st century Americans would agree that if we were placed in the middle of the destitute ghetto of Calcutta, most of us would not be able to survive for more than a week, especially without our vital iPhones and technology. However, individuals with the same never-say-die attitude as Brierley would continue to persevere and resort back to our innate, neanderthal instincts to survive in the battle that is man versus nature at its finest. Take a moment to imagine a child, maybe a relative or one passing by, who is about five years old being plucked from their petite kindergarten classroom and into the middle of a poverty-stricken, grimy city forced to sleep in a pile of trash underneath railroad tracks for nearly a month. Much different than that kindergarten classroom, or even our first-world lives, right? The young Brierley being lost at that time and removed from his family allow us readers to reminisce on a time when they felt lost and alone in our lives. Brierley symbolizes our inner selves, placed right in the center of our most dramatic crises, trying to navigate our way back to sanity and comfort with an overbearing hunger for knowledge and looming trepidation at every corner. We are so absorbed into this story because of the innocence that we see in ourselves, our childlike minds struggling to breathe and survive, and our souls a mirror to the young Indian boy. Sometimes we must face the dead end of the path before us, coming to terms with horrid conclusions and blindly taking the next step into the future, as did Brierley when agreeing to live with the “white” Australian parents with the “big, shiny house” and realizing, at such a young age, the improbability of returning to his former life.
Brierley’s fascinating life-story, that leaves audiences compulsively yearning for more, also leaves many awake at night comparing the “problems” to the actual third-world traumatic experiences that occur every day. For me, this story put my life into perspective and how fortunate I am without having any control over receiving this gift. While most American teenagers tend to complain about the Wifi to their thousand-dollar devices not loading one second quicker than they would prefer, children such as Brierley are forced to fight against a different type of enemy every day---hunger, poverty, abuse, and death. In a world where most Americans “can’t even” with their minuscule first-world daily dilemmas, Brierley opens their eyes, without any warning, into the hair-raising reality that encompasses most of the world’s population throughout history. Speaking for the community of loyal fans to this riveting story, I would like to give a tremendous thank you to Saroo Brierley for opening our minds and enlightening our souls to the spine-chilling struggles of others, so that we may appreciate every moment with those that we love, as truly nothing else is more integral to survival and the essence of life.