Saroo lives with his big brother Guddu, his mother and sister in the slums.

Guddu
and Saroo steal coal from freight trains to afford milk and food. One day Saroo
follows his brother to a job away from home, and they arrive at a train station,
where Saroo stays and awaits Guddu's return. When Guddu does not come, Saroo
searches for him and boards a train. He falls asleep and wakes to find the train is
moving with no one onboard and he can't get off. After several days he finds himself
in faraway Calcutta, where he doesn't understand the Bengali language. He joins a
ticket queue and tries to obtain a ticket home, but the attendant does not recognise
the name of his village, which Saroo gives as "Ginestlay". He spends the night in the
train station with street kids.