Will the lost boy find his long way home?

Two weeks ago during a break from the L.A. junket for Space Between Us (still showing in some theaters nationwide, starring Asa Butterfield and Brit Robertson), my nephew Raymond Lo, this paper’s L.A. correspondent, insisted that I watch Lion, saying, “I dare you not to cry.” Raymond had seen it and wanted to watch it again…and shed more tears. Had I bet my few remaining dollars, Raymond would have won hands down. Yes, I cried with him at a theater in San Pedro where my other nephew Jerome lives with his wife Gem and their beautiful daughters Jewel and Raya.

Lion dramatizes the true story of Saroo Brierley, based on his book of the same title (previously titled A Long Way Home: A Memoir), who was born in a poor village in India, living hand-to-mouth in a one-room hut with mother who was abandoned by her husband for another woman and his three siblings. Saroo and his brother Kallu would beg for food or pick up leftovers at a train station where they got separated.

Saroo, then five years old, leaped onto a passing train to look for Kallu, fell asleep and woke up almost two thousand miles away, lost in a city where he knew nobody, wandering in the streets until a good-hearted woman brought him to an orphanage where he was adopted by an Australian couple. Thirty years later, Saroo retraced his way back to his family’s little place in India and found his mother and siblings (but sadly, minus Kallu who, the night they got separated, was killed by a speeding train).

In Lion, directorial debut of Australian Garth Davis, Saroo is played by Dev Patel, the Indian actor educated in London who got rave reviews for his performance in the 2008 Oscar Best Picture Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, and starred in other members including the critically-acclaimed The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Cast as the little Saroo is newcomer Indian actor Sunny Pawar, with Nicole Kidman and David Wenham as the adoptive parents.

Actually, two years ago, I read the story of Saroo in Reader’s Digest, condensed from his book, so when Raymond invited me to watch the movie version, I said “Go!” right away.

Last Sunday, on her GMA show Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho, Jessica made televiewers cry when she featured the story of Jojo De Carteret (his adoptive surname) which resonated with that of Saroo. When Jojo was five years old, he got lost somewhere in La Loma, Quezon City, and was found by a kind-hearted woman who couldn’t understand what the lost boy was saying so she decided to bring him to an orphanage. There, an Australian couple took Jojo for adoption and raised him in Melbourne. That was in 1985. Now 35 and an aspiring filmmaker, Jojo came back in November last year to look for his biological mother who was blamed for Jojo’s disappearance by her husband and left her.

I’m not sure if Jojo has watched Lion (not yet shown in Manila) and if he did, I’m sure he identified with Saroo and felt as if the story unfolding on the big screen were his own. I’m sure he must have cried and cried over the movie, especially in the scene where Patel, shown in extreme close-up after locating his home in India, alternately smiling and turning sad then turning happy and triumphant, his eyes lighting up and then welling with joyful tears…and Saroo’s reunion scene with his long-lost mother who never left her humble home hoping and waiting for Saroo’s return and his siblings (now with families of their own).

I wonder, did Jojo see Lion and get inspired to embark on his long way home in search of his biological mother?

Tomorrow, Jessica will air Part 2 of Jojo’s story, hoping (against hope?) that Jojo’s lost mother (or anybody who knows her or her whereabouts) will finally (finally!!!) get to embrace her little boy who got lost in La Loma, as tightly as Saroo and his mom did, bridging years and years of longing. Saroo returned to his adoptive family in Australia and continued to help his biological mother (and even built a nice home for her). Jojo must have a mind to do the same.

On the PAL flight to Manila, I read Lion the novel and finished teary-eyed before we landed at the NAIA. Incidentally, before we watched the movie, I asked Raymond why the movie is so titled but he refused to tell. “You will know at the end,” he said.

(Postscript: As the credits roll up at the end of Lion, there’s a revelation that hundreds of poor boys suffer the same fate as Saroo Brierley. The movie should inspire viewers to help those lost boys find a second home if not their own way home.)

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