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| Sunny Pawar and Dev Patel play the same character in the film "Lion." |
In a nutshell, little Saroo gets lost and travels over 500 miles from his village in an empty train, never to see his family again - until 25 years later. The first hour of the movie is just this unbelievably sweet, tiny five year old, all alone, trying to stay alive. Danger is everywhere. It's emotionally wrenching to watch.
Then he miraculously gets adopted by a loving white family in Australia. So life should be hunky dory. But it isn't because he needs to know who he is. He needs to let his mom and brother know he's OK. He needs to address his past.
This, to me, is a universal story. It's tough for all of us when we can't remember but also can't forget. The part of the film that is a gift to all of us is technology. Thirty year old Saroo discovers Google Earth. It takes a while but Google Earth enables him to discover his home. Doesn't seem believable, huh?
But on Google Earth I have visited my 1950s home (or what's left of it) several times. I've traveled from my house on Bloyd Avenue, to the corner, turned left onto Caroline and then traveled to Roosevelt where my 1950s teen aged self would hop on the trolley.
Dave, on Google Earth, has visited the Hebron Boarding School in India where he attended kindergarten after his parents, in Malasia, put him on a boat with strangers to make the trip to India. He was five years old just like Saroo.
These are Google Earth trips to our childhood that we've taken in order to clear up some cobwebs.
So Saroo's ability to mend his childhood by finding his birth mother in a country of 1.3 billion people is maybe not so unbelievably miraculous after all.
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