Not since 'Crocodile Dundee' has an Australian film
sat on the top of the nation's box office for this long.
'Lion', the story of a young Indian boy, Saroo,
who was lost on a train, is eventually adopted out to Australia,
gets a new mum, played by Nicole Kidman,
until he grows up and uses Google Maps to find his way back home.
The film has swept the world by storm,
it's been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar,
but it all starts with this man, this is the real Saroo Brierley.
And this is the real woman who adopted him, Susan.
And this is what really happened.
So firstly thanks for coming to us, we really appreciate your time.
- Thanks for having us. - Thank you.
What is the absolute earliest memory that you have?
The earliest memory would have been at the age of three,
and it just flashes up in my memory sometimes.
I remember I was in this house and it's sort of darkish
and a milkman always used to come in the evening.
Guddu...
How did you manage to hold on to those memories?
Were you retelling yourself parts of the story to remember
as you were growing up?
It's mostly visuals because
my visuals were heightened right from birth.
You're living off your wits and when you live off your wits
you've got to think spontaneously on the spot and go.
If emotions came in, then I think that's the end of you.
There's psychological scaring from being on the train
and then coming to Calcutta and going through the... hardship.
Then going to sleep as well at night and just reliving what had happened
to those times in India as a child.
It just sustained within me perpetually
because the thing about it is that I held it so tight
due to the fact that if I lost it then I would have lost my identity
and these memories were integral to finding my way home.
Did you ever try to put it out of your mind growing up
that there was this sister, this brother, this mother,
that was probably looking for you?
No, never. I would have kept that till the day that I died.
This is where you live.
When Saroo was first with us, though, we'd go out
to the supermarket or whatever,
it was invariable that Saroo would find something on the floor there
be it a coin, a hairclip, he'd always come home with a little thing
and the kindest little one that he ever gave to me
was this beautiful little butterfly but he said
"I no take..." He was worried that I thought he might have...
- Stolen it... - "Where did that come from?"
And he just pointed to the ground and he'd picked up this little thing
and I never made him feel bad about it
because it surely helped him to survive in India.
You put up a map of India in your house.
Why was that important?
We had no idea where the boys really came from.
But we wanted to show respect to the country.
So the map of course was an integral part of his bedroom he came home to.
Sometimes I think of it,
we tried to make it look like a maharajah's palace.
- Really? - Yes.
It had Indian decor, bright colours,
for us as a family, we ate Indian food,
it really was an ode to his first life.
23 years later, after growing up with my adopted family, in Tasmania,
I discovered Google Earth.
It is probably one of the most improbable things
that there was in fact one night where you did,
through what I understand to be almost random clicking
through Google Earth, actually found your house.
Can you take us back to that night?
It was late, I'd finished work
and then around two o'clock in the morning...
- You were just clicking. - Yeah.
And all of a sudden came to a railway line,
zoomed down, followed it and bang, there it was.
The first thing I saw as I zoomed in was the water tower,
and then went to the right a bit and saw the sort of a horseshoe driveway
and these landmarks were perfectly placed as well as being there, too.
And how are you feeling at this point
as these clues are starting to form a place?
- I'm not convinced - Really? Sceptical?
- Sceptical, yeah. - Is it dangerous to have too much hope?
Yeah, it is, there's been many times where I've walked away in dismay
and thought, what am I doing?
Each time I get my hopes up, I get excited and then they get shattered.
And I thought to myself, let's play a game.
Can you convince yourself that you know the way from the dam
to the centre of the city?
And so I just scrolled and took a bit of a left and a right
and threads through nooks and crannies.
And I thought, to the left is a cinema, I zoomed down, yep,
and then on my right-hand side is the three-platform train station
that I used to hang out all the time. And there it was.
And when was the moment he revealed to you that he had found it?
Saroo was at work and he went in to John's office
and said just straight out "I think I've found my home."
We hadn't known that Saroo was searching
so it was pretty incredible.
We were worried, I guess.
And certainly the departure at the airport was pretty tough
But I did give him a photo of when he was little
That was how people would have remembered him including his mother
He just virtually tossed his bag in the hotel and walked into the slums.
And it was round the corner to where his mother was.
He'd found his family really within hours of arriving in his town.
I'm wondering, if you could talk to that kid,
and tell him about what would happen, what would you have told him?
Whilst he's holding that chocolate bar?
Yeah. Eat it, eat it now!
Um... I'd say, you know,
I think you're gonna have - from what you went through - a very colourful life ahead of you
Who would have ever thought from, you know,
That kid walking through the VIP and meeting his future family
That something like this would then come about
You could have been out of this earth at a very young age
But the heavens pushed and pulled
and this is my destiny
Guys, thank you so much for talking to us, really appreciate your time
Thanks very much