Showing an astounding amount of resourcefulness for his age, he made a conscious decision to solve his problem by living off the abundance of trash and systematically boarded trains that left the hub of the city’s central station in the hopes of chancing onto one that would take him home.īut therein lay the crux of his problem.
For him, “It felt as if the people in the station weren’t people at all but a great solid mass, like a river or the sky, on which (he) could make no impact.” Invisible, he was simply another child devoured by the city. He had been trained, as many poor children in India were, to avoid authority figures - for they had always led to trouble. Shock overwhelmed him and his mind went numb as he sat in that bustling train station. He was barefoot, penniless and desperately hungry and thirsty. However, it is set in the real world, a place where wonderment and miraculous occurrences can often seem wanting.īrierley’s story spans three decades, from his earliest years in India as a boy living in poverty, but rich in his mother’s and his three siblings’ love, to his life of comfort and affluence in Australia with adoptive parents and a brother.Īt that moment, the boy was swept away from everything he had ever known to Calcutta, “the sprawling mega-city famous for its overpopulation, pollution, and crushing poverty - one of the most dangerous cities in the world.” It comes in the classic sense of a happy ending, for the journey of the author, both as a boy and then again as a young man, evokes the audacity of a fable.
There is a real feeling of catharsis when reading Brierley’s astounding narrative.
Lion a long way home book movie#
Luckily for readers - and moviegoers - there is just such a tale in Saroo Brierley’s memoir “A Long Way Home,” which served as the basis for the acclaimed 2016 movie “Lion,” starring Dev Patel.
Every once in awhile, a story comes along that seems too remarkable to be true, tying together a miraculous sequence of events that once would have been ready fodder for Oprah Winfrey in her talk show days.
0 kommentar(er)
