Sumith Prasad
Garth Davis’ biographical drama film ‘Lion’ revolves around Saroo Brierley, a five-year-old Indian boy who goes missing from his hometown, Khandwa. He eventually ends up in Calcutta (presently known as Kolkata) after unintentionally sleeping aboard a train. Even though the local authorities search for his family, they fail to track down his mother, paving the way for his adoption. An Australian couple named John and Sue Brierley become his new father and mother, providing him with a home, comfort, and family to ensure his well-being. As the movie depicts, Saroo found his real family in India in February 2012, more than two and a half decades after the fateful night he was lost!
Saroo Brierley Has Remained in Touch With His Biological Family Since Their Reunion
Saroo Brierley was born around 1981 and grew up with his mother and three siblings in Ganesha Talai, a suburb of Khandwa, India. After unintentionally arriving in Calcutta at the age of 5, John and Sue Brierley adopted and raised him in Hobart, the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania. He found a way to track down his biological relatives nearly 25 years after his adoption with the help of the satellite images provided by Google Earth. The reunion sparked a humongous media frenzy both in India and Australia. The personal and cherished meeting with his mother, Kamla, also known as Fatima, and siblings, Kallu and Shekila, was covered by national and international media outlets.
In 2013, Saroo accompanied his adoptive mother, Sue Brierley, to meet Kamla in Khandwa. The meeting was, unsurprisingly, an invaluable experience for him. Since then, he has frequently been in touch with his loved ones in India, who include his nieces and nephews. As a responsible son, he bought a home for his mother and started sending her money every month to ensure her well-being. In the next five years, he visited her around 18 times. Even though Kamla considered moving to Australia to be with Saroo, the vast differences in culture and language dissuaded her from leaving Khandwa. However, he invited Kallu and Shekila to Tasmania since they wanted to visit the home where their brother was raised.
Saroo’s time in India further included a meeting with Saroj Sood, the founder of the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption (ISSA), who facilitated his adoption. He even visited the Nava Jeevan orphanage for abandoned babies and lost children, where he stayed before John and Sue decided to adopt him. This visit motivated him to also contribute to the repairs to the establishment. After the media attention surrounding Saroo’s inspiring life story increased after his return to India, publishers and producers started to ring him frequently. Even though the experience was overwhelming for him, his life turned around when he wrote and published his memoir, ‘A Long Way Home,’ the source text of ‘Lion,’ in 2013.
The Weinstein Company acquired the rights to Saroo’s book for $12 million in May 2014. He remained in touch with the creative heads behind the film adaptation of his work and even attended the 2017 Academy Awards since the biographical drama received six nominations. Even though his life story is incredibly personal to him, he wanted to share it with the world to help adopted individuals who might be in similar circumstances.
Saroo Brierley Continues to Live and Work in Tasmania Even Today
Even after Saroo Brierley reunited with his biological mother and siblings, he didn’t want to move away from Australia, specifically Tasmania, where the Brierleys are based. After returning from India and becoming a famed figure worldwide, he always returned to his family in Australia to feel grounded, irrespective of where he went. He also remained focused on running his family business, which includes several firms such as Brierley Hose and Handling, Brierley Marine Chandlery, and Tas Lifting, all based in Hobart. After coming back from India, Saroo wanted a “mentally stimulating” experience, which motivated him to open a new store of Brierley Hose and Handling in Launceston, Tasmania.
“You can’t just come back from having high adrenaline into nothing… so having the family business facilitates that,” Saroo told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 2015. His relationship with Lisa, the inspiration behind Rooney Mara’s Lucy in ‘Lion,’ sadly ended during this period. According to Sue Brierley, Saroo’s “schedule and the pressure of the media attention” strained the couple’s togetherness, paving the way for their break up. Since then, he has chosen to keep his personal life, including his relationship status, private. Still, from what we know, he continues to be surrounded by his adoptive parents, John and Sue Brierley, and brother, Mantosh, in Australia when he is not visiting his family in India.
In addition to the family business, Saroo also runs a firm called Saroo Brierley Enterprises. Following the publication of ‘A Long Way Home’ and the release of ‘Lion,’ he became a renowned speaker all across the globe. In his talks, he focuses on his inspiring and moving life story, the writing and publication of his memoir, and the significance of technology, especially as a person who used Google Earth to find his loved ones.
Saroo Brierley Has Been Working on a Sequel to A Long Way Home
After the incredible success of ‘A Long Way Home,’ Saroo Brierley published ‘Little Lion’ in 2020. The book, illustrated by the acclaimed illustrator Bruce Whatley, painted a picture of his experiences for child readers. In 2019, the author announced that he was working on a sequel to ‘A Long Way Home’ that follows his life after his reunion with his family in India. He added that the work will end with specifics about his potential meeting with his biological father. “It will finish off with finding my father. I know where he is, but I just haven’t had the strength to finalize that point. It’s an individual thing that you do by yourself, there’s a lot of soul searching,” Saroo told the UAE-based newspaper, The National.
Saroo has been considering finding his biological father, who abandoned his family after the latter’s second marriage, ever since reuniting with Kamla, Kallu, and Shekila. When he discussed the matter with his siblings, neither of them was encouraging since they couldn’t forgive the person who abandoned them. But that hasn’t been the case with the author. “If my father genuinely regretted his behavior, then I could forgive him,” he wrote in ‘A Long Way Home.’ However, Saroo hasn’t given any recent updates concerning meeting his father since then.
While not working as an author, Saroo shares his life with his friends in Australia, occasionally having a drink or two at captivating spots in Tasmania. His career as a keynote speaker marked a landmark in 2024 when he was named one of the top trending AAPI speakers for colleges by Gotham Artists. His unbelievable life story has inspired countless people around him, including Sue, who wrote ‘Lioness’ as a prequel to ‘A Long Way Home,’ and Mantosh, who started tracking down his biological mother as his brother did.
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