When Saroo Brierley jumped on a train to head to his home in India back in 1987, after he had already spent a day outside begging for money with his brother, he had no idea that he had just boarded a train that was going to the opposite end of India.
This would spark a chain of events that would lead him to be deemed a lost child and adopted by parents from Austrailia, but not before he almost drowned in the Gagnes River while searching for his home, and seeing his brother pass away during the journey. But, after 25 years, Brierley used Google Maps to find his home, going off of nothing but memories from his childhood. He literally just went through Google Maps looking for things that seemed familiar, and Google ended up leading him to his hometown, Ganesh Talai. He found a Ganesh Talai group on Facebook, sent a few messages, and eventually bought a plane ticket to his hometown. After walking through the streets searching for his family, he finally found them. Though the reunion was sweet, after so much time living with a different family in a different country, there was a cultural barrier. "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.
This happened early last year, and Google and Saroo Brierley produced a short video about the events that was just released—check it out above.