A Long Way Home

“The map’s hundreds of place-names swam before me throughout my childhood.”

Maps are important symbols in Saroo’s memoir. The conventional map of India in his childhood bedroom symbolizes a distant home that seems forever out of reach. The symbolism of the map reminds him of his origins and foreshadows his future discovery of his hometown to come.

“Of course, when I first arrived in Australia, the emphasis was on the future, not the past. I was being introduced to a new life in a very different world from the one I’d been born into, and my new mum and dad were putting a lot of effort into facing the challenges that experience brought.”

Sue and John’s primary concern was to help Saroo adjust to life in Australia. The encouragement to look towards the future helped him to hope for the times ahead, and Saroo’s awareness of his adoptive parents’ challenges reveals how mature he already was upon joining the Brierley family.

“Hunger limits you because you are constantly thinking about getting food, keeping the food if you do get your hands on some, and not knowing when you are going to eat next.”

Hunger was all-consuming for young Saroo. It forced him and his brothers to scrounge, beg, and steal. Although Saroo’s memories of India are fragmented, he vividly recalls the hunger of his childhood and the things he was forced to do to sate it.