A Long Way Home

Chapters 5-9 focus on Saroo’s adoption and life in Australia, which brings a key theme to the forefront: otherness. Culture shock sets in as soon as Saroo arrives in Hobart: “To eyes used to the crush and pollution of one of the most populous places on earth, it seemed so empty and so clean—the streets, the buildings, even the cars […] It looked almost deserted” (107). Saroo describes having to adjust to the simplest of things, such as having a room of his own filled with books, toys, and clothing: “Both houses I’d lived in in India were single rooms, and since then, of course, I’d been in dormitories with other children […] The idea of having possessions took some getting used to” (109). Saroo marvels at his parents’ well-stocked kitchen. However, he cries the first time he sees Sue put red meat in the refrigerator: “Cow, cow!” he says, upset at the slaughter of a holy animal (109). Saroo also must adapt to Australian gender roles, which differ from those of India: “Mum remembers taking me somewhere in the car once when I looked at her and said, ‘Lady no drive.’ She pulled over and said, ‘If lady no drive, then boy walk!’ I quickly learned my lesson” (120). Despite these minor setbacks, Saroo quickly adjusts to life in Hobart, delighting in having enough to eat and going to school, as well as enjoying the outdoors with John.

Sue and John ease Saroo’s transition from India to Australia by maintaining connections to his Indian heritage. In addition to hanging a map of India in Saroo’s bedroom, Sue cooks Indian food and visits his school to explain his adoption to his classmates. The Brierleys take Saroo to the local Indian Cultural Society, which conducts dinners and dances for Hobart’s large community of Indian immigrants. Saroo enjoys these events, but Sue and John notice that they are treated suspiciously by other attendees. They suspect that the hostility is racially biased. The Brierleys introduce Saroo to other international adoptees through the ASIAC, including children from his orphanage in Kolkata. The adoptees bond over the phone, during picnics, and at an excursion to the zoo in Melbourne. Even more impactful is the arrival of Mantosh, whose adoption further normalizes the diversity of the Brierley family.

Despite Sue and John’s best efforts, they could not entirely shield their children from racism. In Chapter 5, for example, Saroo describes overhearing racist remarks while queuing to register for a sports team: “The woman in front of us glanced back and then said in a low voice to the coach, ‘I don’t want my son on the same team as that black boy’” (112). Saroo also recalls coming home from school and asking Sue what a “black basket” is. The question upsets Sue, and Saroo later learns that someone had called him a “black bastard” (112). These racist incidents, however, are minor compared to the ones Mantosh faced: “Unlike me, he seemed to attract racist comments, to which he would retaliate and then find himself in trouble. That encouraged his bullies, who would make a game of stirring him up” (120).

Saroo’s feelings of otherness fade over time, only to resurface in a different form when he goes to study in Canberra in 2007. International students make up a significant portion of the student body at the Australian International Hotel School, where Saroo pursues a degree in hospitality. He befriends students from India, who speak Hindi amongst themselves, eat Indian food, and watch Bollywood movies. In short, the students are far more connected to Indian culture than Saroo, which leaves him feeling like an outsider: “I experienced a kind of reverse culture shock. In the company of the international students, for the first time I was stripped of my ‘Indianness’—rather than being somewhat exotic, I was the Australian among the Indians” (141).

Saroo loves his adoptive family, but he never forgets about the family he left behind in India. He preserves his early childhood memories by visualizing his hometown: “I was still determined not to forget any details of my childhood and often went through my memories in my head, as though telling myself a story” (137). In addition to visualizing home, Saroo sends mental messages to his mother and siblings to stay connected to them: “Transported there in my mind, I would concentrate on sending them a message that I was okay and they shouldn’t worry. It was almost a meditation” (137-38). As much as Saroo loves the Brierleys, like many adoptees, he struggles with the absence of his birth family: “Adoptees, whether or not they ever knew their birth parents, often describe the constant, gnawing feeling of there being something missing: without a connection, or at least the knowledge of where they are from, they feel incomplete” (154). Saroo misses his siblings so much he asks Sue to bring Shekila to him every Christmas (115). Similarly, he yearns to be reunited with his birth mother: “I missed my mother deeply […] they couldn’t replace my being with my birth mother” (115).

Saroo’s Indian friends in Canberra reignite his desire to find his birth family, a search made possible by the development of digital technologies. Indeed, Saroo may never have found his birth family had it not been for Google Earth. Conventional maps of India are not detailed enough to show small villages. In addition, Saroo is unsure about the name of his hometown and the train station that ran nearby. Google Earth is highly detailed and allows him to “look at the world from above, sweeping across it like an astronaut” (148). Despite this powerful tool, Saroo’s search is long and tedious, traits he conveys through evocative descriptions:

Night after night, with the day’s last reserves of energy and willpower, I sat staring at railway lines, searching for places my five-year-old mind might recognize. It was a repetitive, forensic exercise, and sometimes it started to feel claustrophobic, as if I were trapped and looking out at the world through a small window, unable to break free of my course in a mind-twisting echo of my childhood ordeal (169).

The concept of fate is a through line in Saroo’s memoir. For example, Saroo’s first school is in a suburb of Hobart called Howrah, the same name as the train station and bridge he encounters as a child in Kolkata. As an adult, Saroo follows train lines leading in and out of Kolkata using Google Earth, which he describes as a high-tech version of what he had done in his first week in the city, “randomly taking trains out to see if they went back home” (162). After years of methodical searching using carefully considered parameters, Saroo locates his hometown by chance, outside his established search zone: “I idly flicked the map […] I enjoyed this little exploration, indulgently unrelated to my search […] I clicked on the blue train station symbol to reveal its name…Burhanpur. My heart nearly stopped. Burhanpur!” (172-73). Saroo soon realizes that his hometown was right in front of him his entire life: “The first thing that hit me was that my home had been marked on the map above my desk the whole time, if I’d only known where to look. How many times had I looked at all those names, not knowing their secrets?” (182). Saroo’s belief in fate reflects the influence of Sue, who had a vision of standing next to a brown-skinned child when she was 12 years old. She describes feeling an electric shock go through her body and later interprets the vision as a sign to pursue international adoption. Sue is delighted when she learns the ISSA found a child for her to adopt. She also feels she is fulfilling her destiny: “Somewhere inside her, she’d always felt that the vision she’d had at the age of twelve had meant it was her destiny to have an adopted child by her side. It seemed like fate had required them to wait sixteen years after deciding to adopt for me, specifically, to be ready and waiting for them” (134).