Five-year-old Saroo gets lost on a train that is headed away from his home
and family. Frightened and bewildered, he ends up in chaotic Kolkata,
thousands of miles away. Somehow he survives, living on the streets and
escaping all sorts of terrors and close calls in the process, before ending up
in an orphanage that is itself not exactly a safe haven. Eventually, Saroo is
adopted by an Australian couple and finds love and security as he grows up
in Hobart. Not wanting to hurt his adoptive parents’ feelings, he suppresses
his past, his emotional need for reunification, and his hope of ever seeing
his lost mother and brother. But a chance meeting with fellow Indians
reawakens his buried yearning. With just a small store of memories and the
help of a new technology called Google Earth, Saroo embarks on one of the
greatest needle-in-a-haystack quests of modern times.