THE LONG WAY HOME is one of my personal favourite books, perhaps because it’s very quiet. And for Armand, at this point in his life, so wounded deep down, there is comfort. “Then what are you struggling with?” When he didn’t answer, she had her answer. “Yes.” He took the book from her and grasped it so tightly in one hand she half expected words to squeeze out. “It’s from an old spiritual.”Ĭlara stared at the back cover. “There’s power enough in Heaven / To cure a sin-sick soul.” Armand Gamache finished the phrase. “There is a balm in Gilead,” she read from the back, “to make the wounded whole-” Unbeknownst to me, in the church basement over dinner with a stranger, the seeds not just of the village, but the themes of Three Pines were planted. And then, the unimaginable power of knowing they were safe. The kindness of the act, the awareness of how weary and confused and frightened those immigrants must’ve been. I heard that story years before starting to write, and always loved the symbolism of it. And that they were a signal to those loyal to the British crown, flooding across the boarded during the War of Independence, that they were safe in Canada. Had been there for more than a hundred years. She had them planted in front of her house. It’s funny how we pick up ideas, isn’t it? I sat beside an elderly stranger at a social, in a church basement, and she told me the story of the three pines. Three great spires that inspired the name. And in the center of that were the pine trees that soared over the community. Practices like these are what child’s-rights advocates overwhelmingly wish to stop.The homes formed a circle, and in its center was the village green. This can, in some cases, lead to a practice known as baby stealing, where people actually kidnap infants to feed the international adoption market. and Australia included, infants and babies under a year old are in extremely high demand for adoption, while older children such as Saroo and Mantosh are overwhelmingly not adopted-though children in their age group make up the majority of adoptable children in many countries. Each country sets its own rules and guidelines for adoption, which can make navigating those rules especially challenging for prospective parents. The first international law governing international adoption was passed months after Saroo’s adoption went through in 1987, and two more have followed in the years since. Legally, the second view has more traction. Some people, such as Sue Brierley (Saroo’s adoptive mother), believe that international adoption should be made easier and be less regulated so that more people will feel able to do it, while others take a child’s-rights standpoint and insist that there need to be more regulations guiding international adoption. The subject of international adoption can be a tricky one. He’s been back several times since, and is doing what he can to help his nieces and nephews, buy his mother a house, and support the orphanage in Calcutta that facilitated his adoption. He returned to Khandwa for the first time in 2011 and was able to reconnect with his mother, younger sister, and older brother. While he was in college, he began using Google Earth to look for his hometown, and he finally succeeded after five years of searching. He completed a degree in hospitality as a young man, but began working with his father in the family hosepipe business after graduating. Within seven months, he was adopted by a family in Tasmania, Australia and became Saroo Brierley. The birthday he celebrates is one given to him by the Calcutta authorities they estimated the year, and the month and day are the date that he arrived at the orphanage. He survived for weeks on the streets until he came to the attention of the authorities. When he was five, he mistakenly boarded a train for the city of Calcutta, one of the most dangerous cities in India. They were extremely poor, and Saroo and his siblings were often left home alone for days at a time. His father effectively left the family when Saroo was very young, so Saroo, his brothers, and their mother had to do whatever they could to support the family.
He was their third child and was actually born with the name Sheru. As Saroo’s memoir explains, he was born in the small central Indian town of Khandwa to a Muslim father and a Hindu mother.