[BITList] Little boy lost finds his mother using Google Earth

Tue Apr 17 23:48:10 BST 2012

13 April 2012 Last updated at 23:26 GMT
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17693816
Little boy lost finds his mother using Google Earth
By Robin Banerji BBC World Service

An Indian boy who lost his mother in 1986 has found her 25 years later from
his new home in Tasmania - using satellite images.

Saroo was only five years old when he got lost. He was travelling with his
older brother, working as a sweeper on India's trains. "It was late at
night. We got off the train, and I was so tired that I just took a seat at a
train station, and I ended up falling asleep."

That fateful nap would determine the rest of his life. "I thought my brother
would come back and wake me up but when I awoke he was nowhere to be seen. I
saw a train in front of me and thought he must be on that train. So I
decided to get on it and hoped that I would meet my brother."

Saroo did not meet his brother on the train. Instead, he fell asleep and had
a shock when he woke up 14 hours later. Though he did not realise it at
first, he had arrived in Calcutta, India's third biggest city and notorious
for its slums.

"Start Quote

 I do not think any mother or father would like to have their five year old
wandering alone in the slums and train stations of Calcutta"

Saroo Brierley
"I was absolutely scared. I didn't know where I was. I just started to look
for people and ask them questions."

Soon he was sleeping rough. "It was a very scary place to be. I don't think
any mother or father would like to have their five year old wandering alone
in the slums and trains stations of Calcutta."

The little boy learned to fend for himself. He became a beggar, one of the
many children begging on the streets of the city. "I had to be quite
careful. You could not trust anyone." Once he was approached by a man who
promised him food and shelter and a way back home. But Saroo was suspicious.
"Ultimately I think he was going to do something not nice to me, so I ran
away."

But in the end, he did get off the streets. He was taken in by an orphanage,
which put him up for adoption. He was adopted by the Brierleys, a couple
from Tasmania. "I accepted that I was lost and that I could not find my way
back home, so I thought it was great that I was going to Australia."

Saroo settled down well in his new home. But as he got older the desire to
find his birth family became increasingly strong. The problem was that as an
illiterate five-year-old he had not known the name of the town he had come
from. All he had to go on were his vivid memories. So he began using Google
Earth to search for where he might have been born.

"It was just like being Superman. You are able to go over and take a photo
mentally and ask, 'Does this match?' And when you say, 'No', you keep on
going and going and going."

Google Earth image that helped Saroo find his way home

Eventually Saroo hit on a more effective strategy. "I multiplied the time I
was on the train, about 14 hours, with the speed of Indian trains and I came
up with a rough distance, about 1,200km."

He drew a circle on a map with its centre in Calcutta, with its radius about
the distance he thought he had travelled. Incredibly, he soon discovered
what he was looking for: Khandwa. "When I found it, I zoomed down and bang,
it just came up. I navigated it all the way from the waterfall where I used
to play."

Soon he made his way to Khandwa, the town he had discovered online. He found
his way around the town with his childhood memories. Eventually he found his
own home in the neighbourhood of Ganesh Talai. But it was not what he had
hoped for. "When I got to the door I saw a lock on it. It look old and
battered, as if no-one had lived there for quite a long time."

Saroo had a photograph of himself as a child and he still remembered the
names of his family. A neighbour said that his family had moved.

"Another person came and then a third person turned up, and that is when I
struck gold. He said, 'Just wait here for a second and I shall be back.' And
when he did come back after a couple of minutes he said, 'Now I will be
taking you to your mother.'"

Lost and found

 a.. 1981: Saroo is born
 b.. 1986: He loses his family and ends up living on the streets of
Calcutta
 c.. 1987: He is adopted by an Australian couple and grows up in Tasmania
 d.. 2011: He finds his home town on Google Earth
 e.. 2012: He is reunited with his mother in Khandwa
"I just felt numb and thought, 'Am I hearing what I think I am hearing?'"

Saroo was taken to meet his mother who was nearby. At first he did not
recognise her.

"The last time I saw her she was 34 years old and a pretty lady, I had
forgotten that age would get the better of her. But the facial structure was
still there and I recognised her and I said, 'Yes, you are my mother.'

"She grabbed my hand and took me to her house. She could not say anything to
me. I think she was as numb as I was. She had a bit of trouble grasping that
her son, after 25 years, had just reappeared like a ghost."

Although she had long feared he was dead, a fortune teller had told Saroo's
mother that one day she would see her son again. "I think the fortune teller
gave her a bit of energy to live on and to wait for that day to come."

And what of the brother with whom Saroo had originally gone travelling?
Unfortunately, the news was not good. "A month after I had disappeared my
brother was found in two pieces on a railway track." His mother had never
known whether foul play was involved or whether the boy had simply slipped
and fallen under a train.

"We were extremely close and when I walked out of India the tearing thing
for me was knowing that my older brother had passed away."

For years Saroo Brierley went to sleep wishing he could see his mother again
and his birth family. Now that he has, he feels incredibly grateful. He has
kept in touch with his newly found family.

"It has taken the weight off my shoulders. I sleep a lot better now."

And there is something to make him sleep better - with memories of Slumdog
Millionaire still fresh, publishers and film producers are getting
interested in his incredible story.

Saroo Brierley spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service

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