quotes from a long way home by saroo brierly

Saroo is placed in a juvenile detention center, where he is bullied and beaten. Saroo’s life takes an unexpected turn when a teenaged boy turns him over to the police. He spends the following weeks begging and stealing on the dangerous streets of Kolkata.

He gets off in Kolkata and asks strangers for help finding ‘Ginestlay’ and ‘Berampur,’ but most people ignore him. The sun has risen, and the train is moving when Saroo wakes up hours later. Saroo falls asleep, wakes up cold, and climbs on to an empty train. Guddu tells him to wait while he takes care of something. One night, five-year-old Saroo accompanies Guddu to Burhanpur Station to beg for food and money. Saroo’s Muslim father abandoned the family, forcing Kamla to take odd jobs and the children to scrounge and steal. Saroo lives in a one-room house in a suburb of Khandwa called Ganesh Talai, which he shares with his Hindu mother, Kamla, his two older brothers, Guddu and Kallu, and his infant sister, Shekila. The narrative then looks back at Saroo’s life in India. A year after arriving in Hobart, he tells Sue he is from a place called ‘Ginestlay’ and that he got lost after taking a train at ‘Berampur’ Station. Saroo quickly adapts to life in Australia, but he often dreams of India and his biological family. His parents ease his transition, while showering him with love and affection. Coming from abject poverty, Saroo must adjust to having his own room, being able to eat his fill, and going to school. Saroo experiences culture shock when he first arrives in Hobart, the capital of the Australian island-state of Tasmania.

Finding his childhood home empty, Saroo fears his mother died or moved to a distant place until a stranger happens by and takes him to her.Ĭhapter 1 describes Saroo’s early years in the home of his adoptive parents, Sue and John Brierley. The prologue describes the nerve-wracking moments before Saroo reunites with his birth mother after more than two decades. A Long Way Home includes a prologue, 13 chapters, and an epilogue.

Quotes from a long way home by saroo brierly