There are some stories that touch your heart, and you couldn’t help but cry. This story is one of those.
Google has posted a heart-warming video of the reunion of a son and his mother.
The video tells the story of Saroo Brierley, who was born in an Indian town called Khandwa, and lost all contact with his family when he was just 5 years old. In 1986, he was travelling with his brother working as a sweeper on Indian trains. He took a nap at a train station while waiting for his brother, but he couldn’t find him anywhere when he woke up. He saw a train and got inside that in order to find his brother, and reached Kolkata. As he lost all contact with his family, he started begging to survive. After 3 weeks , he was taken in by an NGO which put him up for adoption. He was then adopted by the Brierleys, a couple from Tasmania.
Though Saroo settled well in his new home in Tasmania, the desire to meet his birth family never died. He had an image etched into his brain as a 5 year old of the place where he spent his childhood, and from that little information he started tracing his home through Google Earth.
“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 said.
He finally found his town Khandwa on the map. “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,” said Saroo.
He then travelled to India and located his house, and that is how he met his mother after 25 years of separation.
Google Earth made this short film documenting Saroo’s journey. Watch it here:
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