I did have a long distance trip that year – to Disneyland, my father, my older brother and me, but Calcutta is nothing like Disneyland, everyone spoke my language and money was not something I was concerned with. With only a vague idea of the name of the village he is from, and many miles in between, it’s amazing he ever found his way back.įive years old, I remember naps in school, a playground, an older brother and a brand new baby brother. It would be years before Saroo would return. Looking up to his older brother, five year-old Saroo decides to go with Guddu one night. There was no choice to the matter, hunger was simply a fact of life, like the searing heat and the constantly buzzing flies.” ”I remember feeling hungry most of the time. Guddu also tried extra jobs, selling items at the train station platform, but that created new problems with the law. Playing with his brothers, Guddu and Kallu. Still, there were moments that Saroo would look back on later with fondness: playing peek-a-boo with Shekila, his baby sister. Still, they ended up begging for scraps from neighbors, anyone. I don’t know what that was worth then, but now one rupee is equivalent to 1.6 cents, so less than a penny for 6 hours of washing dishes. Still, it wasn’t enough, so Guddu, the oldest at ten, went to work, washing dishes for 6 hours for half a rupee. Kamla, Saroo’s mother, worked 6 days a week, morning until nightfall, hard physically grueling work, sometimes gone for days at a time. Broken, unpaved streets outside throughout the poverty-stricken neighborhood. When Saroo’s father left his mother and their family for another woman, another family, they moved from the Hindu community / side of town to the Muslim side moving into a single room falling apart with a cowpat and mud floor and a small corner fireplace.
Sad, horrifying, wondrous, life affirming, heartbreaking and heartwarming.
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