An Indian man has reunited with his family after being separated from them as a child 25 years ago. After a decade of using the Internet to search for his childhood home, he finally found it on Google Earth.
Saroo Brierly -- born Sheru in Khandwa, India -- became a "lost boy" at age 5, when he and his brother fell asleep on a train on their way home from begging in a railway station. After a month of trying to find his way home, during which his older brother died, ended up in an orphanage and was adopted by an Australian family.
Brierly, now 30, went on to attend the University of Canberra and run an industrial shop in Hobart, Tasmania, but he says he has kept the images of his hometown in his head for the past 25 years.
"I kept in my head the images of the town I grew up in, the streets I used to wander and the faces of my family, I treasured those memories," he told The Mercury, "Using Google Earth, I spent so many hours zooming in and out looking for something I recognized."
After finding the Khandwa railway station, he was able to track down the Ganesh Talai slum where he grew up. He then used Facebook to connect with people there and find his family.
Last month, he flew to India and reunited with them. Communicating after so many years isn't easy, though.
"There is some Hindi in my head but I have to observe their facial expressions and hand movements to make complete sense of what they say," he said.
Brierly has no plans to move back to his hometown, but he hopes to visit his family frequently, and says he plans to make his amazing life story into a movie.
[gizmodo]
