搜寻回家路

By+David+Kushner

Little boy lost who took 25 years to find his way back home to mum： Saroo Brierley used Google Earth to track down his family 6，000 miles away—as portrayed in an acclaimed film starring Nicole Kidman.2

It was just a small river flowing over a dam， but to five-year-old Saroo Munshi Khan it felt like a waterfall. He played barefoot under the downpour as trains passed nearby.3 When night fell， he would walk a couple miles home.

Home was a tiny mud-brick house with a tin roof.4 He lived there with his mother， Kamala， who worked long hours carrying bricks and cement5， two older brothers， Guddu and Kullu， and a younger sister， Shekila. His father， Munshi， had abandoned the family two years earlier. Guddu， then aged nine， had assumed his role as the man of the house. Guddu spent his days searching passenger trains6 for fallen coins. Early one evening， Guddu agreed to take his little brother to the railway station. The two got on a train to Burhanpur7， about two hours away.

By the time they hopped off8 the train at Burhanpur， Saroo felt exhausted and told his brother he needed to nap before they caught the next train back. When he woke， sunlight was streaming through the windows and the train was moving quickly through the countryside. Saroo had no idea how long he had been asleep and jumped up from his seat. “Bhaiya！” Saroo screamed， the Hindi word for brother. But there was no response. Saroo eventually climbed onto another train， hoping it might lead him home， but it led him to another strange town. He didnt know it at the time， but he had ended up in Calcuttas9 main train station.

For the next week or so， Saroo traveled in and out of Calcutta by train， hoping to end up back at his hometown. He subsisted on10 whatever he could beg from strangers or find in the trash. While he was crossing the train tracks， a man approached him. “I want to go back to Burhanpur，” he told the man—the only city name he knew. “Can you help me？” “Why dont you come with me？” the man said. “Ill give you some food， shelter11， and water.”

Saroo followed him to his tin hut12. “It felt good because I had something in my stomach，” Saroo recalled. The next day the man told him that a friend was going to come over and help him find his family. On the third day， the friend showed up. Then he told Saroo to come lie next to him in bed. Saroo began to worry. “All of a sudden， being close to him the way I was started to have a sick kind of feeling，” he recalled. “I just thought， this isnt right.” When the men went for a cigarette， Saroo ran out the door as fast as he could.

After Saroo had been living on the streets for a few weeks， a kind man who spoke a little Hindi took pity on him and gave him shelter for three days. The Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption （issa）， a nonprofit child-welfare group， paid regular visits to the home looking for children fit for adoption.13 Saroo was deemed14 a good candidate. Transferred to an orphanage15， Saroo was cleaned up and taught how to eat with a knife and fork instead of his hands so that hed be better suited for Western parents. Then one day he was handed a little red photo album. “This is your new family，” he was told. “They will love you， and they will take care of you.”

Saroo had never heard of Australia. He could say only a few words in English when he arrived in Hobart， a scenic harbor in Tasmania，16 an island off the southeastern tip of Australia. John and Sue Brierley were an earnest couple with charitable ideals who， though they were probably biologically capable of bearing children， chose to adopt a lost Indian child as a way of giving back to the world.17

Despite the shock of the new lifestyle， Saroo adjusted， picking up the language as well as an Aussie accent.18 His family expanded when his parents adopted another boy from India five years later. But， privately， he was haunted by the mystery of his past. “Even though I was with people I trusted， my new family， I still wanted to know how my family is： Will I ever see them again？ Is my brother still alive？ Can I see my mothers face once again？” he recalled.

In 2009， having graduated from college， Saroo was living with a friend in the center of Hobart and working on the Web site for his parents company. After years of ignoring his past， it finally came crashing back19—the desire to find his roots， and himself.

Thats when he went to his laptop and launched Google Earth， the virtual globe made from satellite imagery and aerial photography.20 With a few clicks， anyone could get a birds-eye view21 of cities and streets on the computer screen. “I was flying over India on Google Earth just like Superman，” he recalled， “trying to zoom in22 on every town that I saw.”

It certainly seemed like a crazy idea. He didnt have even a vague notion of where in the vast country he had been raised.23

But finding his hometown and his family presented more challenges than anything hed ever tackled24 before； he hadnt been home since he was five and didnt know the name of the town where he was born.

He began in the most logical way he could imagine： by following the train tracks out of Calcutta. The tracks led away from the city like a spiderweb， crisscrossing the country.25 After weeks of fruitlessly following the tracks， Saroo would get frustrated and periodically give up the search.26

About three years later， however， he became determined to pinpoint27 his birthplace.

Rather than searching haphazardly28， he realized， he needed to narrow down his range. Drawing from an applied-mathematics course he had taken in college， Saroo reconceived the problem like a question on a standardized test.29 If he had fallen asleep on the train in the early evening and arrived the next morning in Calcutta， 12 hours had probably passed. If he knew how fast his train was going， he could multiply the speed by the time and determine the rough distance that he had traveled30—and search Google Earth locations within that area.

Saroo used Facebook to contact four Indian friends he knew from college. He asked them to ask their parents how fast trains traveled in India in the 1980s. Saroo took the average speed—80 kilometers per hour—and， crunching31 the numbers， determined that he must have boarded the train roughly 960 kilometers from Calcutta.

With the satellite image of India on his screen， he opened an editing program and began slowly drawing a circle with a radius32 of roughly 960 kilometers， with Calcutta at its center. At times in his life， he had been told that his facial structure resembled people from East India， so he decided to focus largely on that part of the circle.

Saroo began spending hours a night on the trail. Hed fly over India on Google Earth for as much as six hours at a time， sometimes until three or four a.m.

Around one a.m. one night， Saroo finally saw something familiar： a bridge next to a large industrial tank33 by a train station. After months， researching and narrowing his range， Saroo focused in on the outer end of the radius， which was on the west side of India： “Somewhere I never thought to give much attention，”he later said. His heart racing， he zoomed around34 the screen to find the name of the town and read “Burhanpur.” “I had a shock，” he recalled. This was it， the name of the station where he was separated from his brother that day， a couple hours from his home. Saroo scrolled up35 the train track looking for the next station. He flew over trees and rooftops， buildings and fields， until he came to the next depot36， and his eyes fell on a river beside it—a river that flowed over a dam like a waterfall.

Saroo stumbled to bed at two a.m.， too overwhelmed to continue or even look at the name of the town on his screen.37 He woke five hours later wondering if it had all been a dream. “I think I found my hometown，” he told Lisa， his girlfriend， who groggily38 followed him to his computer to see what hed found.

The name of the town was Khandwa. Saroo went to YouTube， searching for videos of the town. He found one immediately， and marveled39 as he watched a train roll through the same station he had departed from with his brother so long ago.

On February 10， 2012， Saroo was looking down on India again—not from Google Earth this time， but from an airplane. The closer the trees below appeared， the more flashbacks of his youth popped into his mind.40

1. Google Earth： 谷歌地球，是一款Google公司开发的虚拟地球仪软件，它整合了卫星影像和航拍数据，可以鸟瞰世界，在3D地图上搜索特定区域，提供路线规划和行车指南等。

2. 走失的小男孩耗时25年搜寻回家路：萨罗·布莱利利用谷歌地球找到了远在六千英里之外的家，该原型被拍成电影并大获好评，影片由妮可·基德曼主演。track down：（经过长时间艰难搜索后）找到；acclaimed： 受到高度赞扬的；Nicole Kidman： 妮可·基德曼，澳大利亚著名女演员，曾获奥斯卡最佳女演员奖。

3. barefoot： 赤着脚；downpour： 倾盆大雨，这里指像瀑布般流下的河水。

4. mud-brick： 泥砖混合的；tin： 锡板制的。

5. cement： 水泥。

6. passenger train： 客运列车。

7. Burhanpur： 布尔汉普尔，是印度中央邦的一个城镇。

8. hop off： （从车上）下来。

9. Calcutta： 加尔各答，是印度西孟加拉邦首府，在殖民地时期（1772—1911），加尔各答一直是英属印度的首都。

10. subsist on： 靠……生存。

11. shelter： 居所，栖身之地。

12. hut： （简陋的）小屋。

13. 印度救助收養组织（issa）——一个非营利性儿童福利团体——会定期来这家访问，看是否有适合收养的孩子。sponsorship： 资助；childwelfare： 儿童福利。

14. deem： 认为，视作。

15. orphanage： 孤儿院。

16. Hobart： 霍巴特，澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚州首府；scenic： 风景优美的；Tasmania： 塔斯马尼亚州，澳大利亚联邦唯一的岛州，位于澳大利亚东南部。

17. 约翰和苏·布莱利是一对热心的夫妇，以慈善为理想。他们原本可以自己生孩子，但依然选择收养一个走丢的印度孩子，以作为回馈世界的一种方式。earnest： 热心的；charitable：慈善事业的。

18. pick up： 学会；Aussie： 澳大利亚的。

19. crash back： 此处指回忆涌回。

20. satellite imagery： 卫星影像；aerial photography： 航空摄影，航拍。

21. birds-eye view： 鸟瞰图。

22. zoom in： 放大，反之为zoom out。

23. vague： 模糊的；notion： 概念。

24. tackle： 解决，应对。

25. spiderweb： 蜘蛛网；crisscross：纵横交织于。

26. fruitlessly： 徒劳地；periodically：偶尔。

27. pinpoint： 给……准确定位。

28. haphazardly： 随意地。

29. applied-mathematics： 应用数学；reconceive： 重新构思。

30. multiply： 乘；rough： 粗略的。

31. crunch：（用计算器或电脑）进行运算。

32. radius： 半径。

33.tank：（盛放液体或气体的）罐，箱。

34. zoom around： 疾速移动。

35. scroll up： 向上滚动。

36. depot： 火车站。

37. stumble： 踉跄；overwhelmed：（因强烈影响而）不知所措的。

38. groggily：（尤指因病或睡眠不足而）昏昏沉沉地，虚弱地。

39. marvel： 感到惊异。

40. flashback：（往事在记忆中的）突然重现；pop into ones mind： 突然想起。