Saroo grew up in a very deprived home, his single mother a labourer collecting rocks to keep food on the table unable to read and write. He and his brother went on missions to collect coal to try to provide milk for the family while looking enviously at the street food that they would never taste. After Saroo becomes separated from his brother he boards a train and finds himself alone in Calcutta miles from home and runs into many kinds of danger. After being sent to an orphanage he is adopted by a couple in Tasmania and is flown into a completely different world of comfort, privilege and opportunity. I found the image of the child arriving in his new home without a word of English wearing a Tasmania t-shirt very powerful. Saroo over the next twenty years is socialised in a completely different environment to the one he is born into. He grows into a fully fledged Australian with the world at his feet.
When he moves to Melbourne to complete a degree in hospitality management he begins to develop an identity crisis. Unsure of where he comes from, not feeling really Indian or really Australian he begins to track down the town from where he was brought up in a desperate attempt to track down his mother and brother. He is supported on this journey by his girlfriend Lucy played by Rooney Mara. On his search for his family he is also in search of himself. The fact that this film is based on a true story is fascinating and heartbreaking as hundreds of children go missing or become separated from their families in India every year and not all of them are as lucky or unlucky as Saroo was.
This film gave me such an interesting perspective on adoption, social mobility and identity. Would highly recommend seeing it!
