When he was five years old, Saroo went to work with his older brother sweeping trains in his Indian village late one night. He sat on a seat on the train station and dropped off to sleep. When he opened his eyes, he couldn't see his brother, so he jumped on board a train at the station, thinking his brother might be inside. However, he fell asleep again and woke with a shock fourteen hours later in what he discovered later was the huge city of Calcutta. Scared and alone, he questioned the people he met, but never found his brother.
From then on he slept in the streets. He managed to escape the clutches of one man who had designs on him, and eventually an orphanage took him in. Up for adoption, a couple accepted him and took him back to their home in Tasmania, where he settled in well.
But he longed for his own family although his young mind had never grasped the name of his original town.
Using his vivid memories, the adult Saroo began the exhaustive process of used Google Earth in Tasmania to match the few sights he could remember when he was playing to search for his birthplace.
"When I found it, I zoomed down and bang, it just came up. I navigated it all the way from the waterfall where I used to play."
In real life, he made the arduous trip back to his hometown neighborhood of Ganesh Talai, where childhood memories filled him at the sight of places he used to play.
But he pulled up in dismay outside his old home which looked abandoned.
A neighbor said that his family had moved. Several people took an interest and one woman led him to his mother.
Saroo's mother gave him the sad news that his brother had been killed by a passing train a month after he got lost. But then, she hugged him. She said a fortune teller had told her she would see her youngest son again one day. It had given her the hope to carry on.
So the Indian boy who lost his mother in 1986 has found her, via satellite images, 25 years later. Do you think this story would make a good movie? See full story at BBC.
Although you and I don't share the same circumstances as Saroo or each other, our normal life could be snatched away by a change of fate at any moment. Let's appreciate our family right now, despite arguments and petty disputes.
Don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today.