We may choose which we way we go in life, but life cannot be always as clear cut as that.  There are complexities involved in decision making such as circumstances. Losing mother and brother can be one of those circumstances.  The Indian boy Saroo in Lion (2016) has lost his mother and brother.

Saroo asked the question, Will I see Ma again, for twenty five years.

Saroo is taken down a road not of his choice which must have caused him much loneliness. But the boy carries the burden with a look of unnatural, godly calmness.

He’s taken on a tangent when only very young. The feeling one has of being lost as a young child is angst-inducing. Questions fill the mind. Will I get home? Will I see mother or father again? The child cannot see ahead clearly.

It all started as a tragic mishap, as Saroo was out and about with his brother. His brother leaves him at a train station, but says he will come back. That little while turns into a way too uncomfortable wait. Why did his brother not turn up at the train station how he said he would? Now, Saroo’s lost and does not know the way back home.

Saroo gets on board a non commissioned train and sleeps. The train is heading for Calcutta. After two days Saroo winds up lost in the big city of Calcutta, in the vivid swarm of people, rubbish and poverty.

As circumstances precipitate, he finds he’s adopted by an Australian couple. But for twenty five years he was asking the question: what happened to mother, what happened to brother?

Connection to mother

Some people haven’t had a kind faced mother to remember, but Saroo does. He remembers her hard work, her concern, and her care. He probably remembers that connection that a child and mother can have.

It is when this connection is broken that there is a breakdown of the comforts of family one once had.

Saroo needed to be reassured his connection to family wasn’t broken—so he tracks down his mother in an obsessive, seemingly impossible search.

The need for knowing that one is still connected to family is very great. We may not even be able to live if that connection is forever lost. When a connection to family is lost, something is lost inside the soul of a person.

Through the sheer determination of Saroo to seek out his mother through all the obstacles, and using modern technology, the connection to family prevailed.

And there’s a hint that the invisible hand was guiding him through his incredible journey.

Perhaps there is a lesson here. Generally speaking, how do we mend broken relationships? We keep on trying through all the obstacles.

The stories of missing children in India aren’t that uncommon. One statistic I found is that about 80,000 children go missing in India each year. Lion is an inspirational true story of a missing person gone better than one might have anticipated.