When Saroo Brierley got on a train with his brother Guddu at five years old, he never knew that he’d be on a 26-year journey home.
The two brothers boarded a train in their hometown of Ganesh Talai, India. Guddu told Saroo to wait where he was and he’d be back for him soon. So Saroo closed his eyes and went to sleep, awaiting his brother’s return.
The five-year-old woke up the next morning on an empty train. There were no passengers left, and Guddu was nowhere to be found.
Saroo was lost. He didn’t know his family’s name or where he was from, so he was adopted into an Australian family, and given a wonderful life.
But like most adopted children, Saroo always longed to be reunited with his biological family again—especially because he had lived his early years with them—loving them and being loved by them.
Fast forward 26 years.
In 2013, Saroo turned to Google Maps and Google Earth to virtually navigate his hometown. He didn’t know the name of it, but ever since he was a little boy growing up in Australia, his mom had put a map of India on his wall so he’d never forget where he came from.
He started with that map, and the town he’d been adopted from—Calcutta. Using the Google Earth application, Saroo was able to compare his photographic memories to the sights on his computer screen.
Eventually he’d navigated his way from the Calcutta train station backward to a train station that reminded him of the one where he’d last boarded with his brother.
Some called it a needle in a haystack. But Saroo was confident that the map in his head and what he’d found on Google Earth would lead him home again.
