How Google Earth helped a lost Indian boy trace back his mom 25 years after separation

Every day, technology transforms our world and the lives within it, turning the once unfathomable into reality. Something completely unfathomable a decade ago is now a very possible pursuit. Therefore, it would be foolish for humans to give up on their dreams in the present-day scenario, as any day they could have the means to attain them. Saroo Brierley's story is an example of this, as the man was able to achieve his objective of meeting with his real family due to Google coming up with a never-seen-before innovation, as per People. This innovation helped him to see places he never could have without spending months away from his home. The technology searched for a possible reality for him and changed his life for the better.

On his official website, Brierley shares the poignant story of how his family was split across two different countries. In 1986, Saroo along with his brother went to a train station. The brother asked Saroo to wait, and the latter while doing so fell asleep. Then, he found himself on a train which landed him in Kolkata. Not knowing the language spoken in the city, he was forced to live on the street for three weeks. He was faced with many challenges during that time. "There's no salvation at all," he said about his ordeals. "The only thing you could do is just try and survive a day at a time." He was he was taken in by an orphanage. Here, he came across Sue and John Brierley, an Australian couple who expressed interest in adopting him.

"Saroo's arrival was a kind of birth into our family," Sue told PEOPLE of first meeting their son at an airport in Tasmania. "It was just a fantastic moment, filled with love and joy." Brierly had no problem warming up to them. He graciously accepted the chocolates, books and toys gifted to him by the couple. Later on, he was joined by another adopted boy from India in the household. However, at the back of his mind, memories of his loving family in India remained. The visions of places around his home and his family were rooted in his mind. Years later, he stumbled upon Google Earth, an application that allows people to "see the world from above with high-resolution satellite imagery, explore 3D terrain and buildings in hundreds of cities and dive into streets and neighborhoods with Street View's 360° perspectives."

The application allowed Saroo to get real-time pictures of places miles away in India. He began to "obsessively" search the train tracks connected to Kolkata and the places surrounding it. One day, he came across a water tower which was a replica of one he has revisited countless times in his memories. As he focussed his search on the water tower, more places cropped up that he was able to identify like a pedestrian bridge or a ravine. All these familiar locales made him zero down on a town named "Khandwa." He explained, "It was a surreal moment. Inside, I was jumping with joy." He decided to visit the place in hopes of reuniting with his long-lost family.

Saroo was fully supported by his adoptive family. "If he wanted to explore that," said Sue, "we wanted him to be fully happy about his identity." As he entered Khandwa, everything began to make sense. Memories of a long-lost past came rushing back to him. He soon made his way to the village where he spent his childhood. The villagers after hearing his story took him to a woman named Fatima. As soon as the pair laid their eyes on each other, they had no doubts. Both of them embraced each other. Brierly later called it the most "pivotal" moment of his life.

When Sue visited Fatima a year later, a translator bridged the gap between their worlds. "The earth seemed to be sort of moving," Sue says of that moment. "I started to cry, and she hugged me. She said through the translator, 'He's your son now. I give my son to you.' We stood there for quite a while, just the three of us holding each other. Suddenly there was no noise. There was only our breathing." Brierly is still in touch with Fatima and has come back many times to visit her. He has also got her a house in India. He recorded this emotional journey in a book titled, "A Long Way Home." It was later adapted into a movie titled "Lion" starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, David Wenham, Divian Ladwa, Priyanka Bose, Deepti Naval, Tannishtha Chatterjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.