UNTAMED

In 2011, I posted my first TRAIN SPOTTER UPDATE on facebook and I thought I had done the most brilliant thing in this world. Late one night in the same year that is 2011, Saroo Brierley located Burhanpur railway station with the help of satellite images put together by Google Maps. He kept following those satellite images and located the town of Khandwa. Finally he was ready to head back to his real home and to his real mother. Six years down the line when I sit down to write this post for my blog, I am unable to relate to everything, I thought was brilliant about my first Train Spotter Update on facebook in 2011. I don’t wish to demean my action but, I can’t separate myself from the story of Saroo Brierley who made my eyes well up.  

The movie LION had that kind of an impact on my mind.

Honestly speaking, I don’t recollect memories of having come across any book in 2013, which had a very foreign title A LONG WAY HOME. I don’t recollect coming across a cover, which described this journey as a boy’s incredible journey from India to Australia and back again. Back then, I am sure to have missed spotting this book in a book stall, missed reading a review of this book, missed reading about the author Saroo Brierley who was telling his story to the world and of course missed the mention ‘soon to be a motion picture’. Thankfully I didn’t miss watching the book transform into a movie with a title as unusual as LION.

I remember watching the trailer of this movie and compare it immediately to Slumdog Millionaire for the commonalities it shared. The trailer showed a train, two brothers onboard, one of them getting lost and ending up being adopted. But the voice of that kid who plays young Saroo in the movie kept lingering in my mind. One of the scenes from the trailer is that of the kid standing surrounded by some kind of flying insects, remained with me. I turned to my colleague in office and I said, “I am going to watch this movie”.

Call it my gut feel or my instinct; I started following the conversations that had started taking place around this movie. I watched the interviews of actors, the makers, the producers and the man behind the movie Saroo. My expectations were at peak and once the news of LION being Oscar worthy started making the rounds; I knew I am going to watch it. I wanted to watch this movie with my mother. As planned, I did so finally. My mother and I left together for our movie date.

From the time, the movie started narrating the real life story of Saroo Brierley on the big screen, we were both left stunned. I could sense the story that its director Garth Davis had imagined narrating to me and my mother; his audience. The camera kept moving between the trails of little Saroo and his elder brother Guddu. The soundtrack placed me right there where the story was getting its voice from. But one of the most incredible things that LION as a movie did to me was to pull me into that train, which ferried little Saroo to Howrah Junction. The well-crafted screenplay made me sense the fear that little Saroo could have felt while travelling stuck in a locked compartment of a fiercely moving train.

The movie took us to Kolkata. The movie also took us to the Howrah Bridge. But it showed to us the other side of a city which comes alive only in the dead of the night. The movie revealed to us the faces, which look simple and yet they are rich with stories. The movie never stopped to make us stay connected to the real story and the challenges faced by Saroo.

LION took us to Tasmania. LION made us find our own way to good life. LION rendered me speechless.

I was seated beside my mother and recollected memories of the times, I had spent staying away from her. Yes, I had spent almost a year staying away from her. Saroo stayed away from his real mother for a long span of 25 years.

Having said that I would put it this way – LION is an amazing movie. Personally speaking, I loved it.

For God sake, don’t leave the Cineplex without watching the little piece of surprise, so beautifully weaved into the movie. And this LION roars, the echoes of that roar are absolutely EXTRAORDINARY.

-Virtuous Vociferous