搜尋回家路

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公司開發(fā)的虛擬地球儀軟件，它整合了衛(wèi)星影像和航拍數(shù)據(jù)，可以鳥瞰世界，在3D地圖上搜索特定區(qū)域，提供路線規(guī)劃和行車指南等。

2. 走失的小男孩耗時(shí)25年搜尋回家路：薩羅·布萊利利用谷歌地球找到了遠(yuǎn)在六千英里之外的家，該原型被拍成電影并大獲好評，影片由妮可·基德曼主演。track down：（經(jīng)過長時(shí)間艱難搜索后）找到；acclaimed： 受到高度贊揚(yáng)的；Nicole Kidman： 妮可·基德曼，澳大利亞著名女演員，曾獲奧斯卡最佳女演員獎。

3. barefoot： 赤著腳；downpour： 傾盆大雨，這里指像瀑布般流下的河水。

4. mud-brick： 泥磚混合的；tin： 錫板制的。

5. cement： 水泥。

6. passenger train： 客運(yùn)列車。

7. Burhanpur： 布爾漢普爾，是印度中央邦的一個(gè)城鎮(zhèn)。

8. hop off： （從車上）下來。

9. Calcutta： 加爾各答，是印度西孟加拉邦首府，在殖民地時(shí)期（1772—1911），加爾各答一直是英屬印度的首都。

10. subsist on： 靠……生存。

11. shelter： 居所，棲身之地。

12. hut： （簡陋的）小屋。

13. 印度救助收養(yǎng)組織（issa）——一個(gè)非營利性兒童福利團(tuán)體——會定期來這家訪問，看是否有適合收養(yǎng)的孩子。sponsorship： 資助；childwelfare： 兒童福利。

14. deem： 認(rèn)為，視作。

15. orphanage： 孤兒院。

16. Hobart： 霍巴特，澳大利亞塔斯馬尼亞州首府；scenic： 風(fēng)景優(yōu)美的；Tasmania： 塔斯馬尼亞州，澳大利亞聯(lián)邦唯一的島州，位于澳大利亞東南部。

17. 約翰和蘇·布萊利是一對熱心的夫婦，以慈善為理想。他們原本可以自己生孩子，但依然選擇收養(yǎng)一個(gè)走丟的印度孩子，以作為回饋世界的一種方式。earnest： 熱心的；charitable：慈善事業(yè)的。

18. pick up： 學(xué)會；Aussie： 澳大利亞的。

19. crash back： 此處指回憶涌回。

20. satellite imagery： 衛(wèi)星影像；aerial photography： 航空攝影，航拍。

21. birds-eye view： 鳥瞰圖。

22. zoom in： 放大，反之為zoom out。

23. vague： 模糊的；notion： 概念。

24. tackle： 解決，應(yīng)對。

25. spiderweb： 蜘蛛網(wǎng)；crisscross：縱橫交織于。

26. fruitlessly： 徒勞地；periodically：偶爾。

27. pinpoint： 給……準(zhǔn)確定位。

28. haphazardly： 隨意地。

29. applied-mathematics： 應(yīng)用數(shù)學(xué)；reconceive： 重新構(gòu)思。

30. multiply： 乘；rough： 粗略的。

31. crunch：（用計(jì)算器或電腦）進(jìn)行運(yùn)算。

32. radius： 半徑。

33.tank：（盛放液體或氣體的）罐，箱。

34. zoom around： 疾速移動。

35. scroll up： 向上滾動。

36. depot： 火車站。

37. stumble： 踉蹌；overwhelmed：（因強(qiáng)烈影響而）不知所措的。

38. groggily：（尤指因病或睡眠不足而）昏昏沉沉地，虛弱地。

39. marvel： 感到驚異。

40. flashback：（往事在記憶中的）突然重現(xiàn)；pop into ones mind： 突然想起。