Lion Page #16

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CASHIER:

Same project?

Saroo nods, with an air of defeat.

EXT. SUBURBAN BEACH - DAY

Saroo walks along the sand with his shopping. Past rows of

suburban houses, their blank windows reflecting the sea.

EXT. RAILWAY TRACKS, KHANDWA - DAY (FLASHBACK)

Little Saroo on the tracks, proudly holds his pregnant belly

of coal. Guddu bustles over to him.

GUDDU:

Come on, hurry.

Little Saroo looks so happy, as they trot off together.

EXT. BEACH HOUSE - CONTINUOUS

Saroo crosses the sand to the house. His face determined now.

I/E. TRAIN CARRIAGE, INDIA - DAY (FLASHBACK)

Saroo’s POV:
the world moves past in a watercolour blur -

ochre country, hills, mountains, trees -

INT. LIVING ROOM, BEACH HOUSE - DAY

ON SCREEN:
tracking railway lines, flying above them -

station after station.

Saroo ZOOMS in.

His hopes up. He counts the platforms with his finger.

NO:
yet again, that’s not it.

Disappointed, he zooms back out.

GOOGLE SCREEN JUMP CUTS: train track after train track ...

Platform after platform...

SOUND of a real train, approaching, coming under us:

EXT. TRAIN LINE, INDIA - DAY (IMAGINED MEMORY)

Kamla walks up to the very edge of railway track just as a

train rips past very fast.

An endless stream of carriages - the noise and speed violent,

crazy, dangerous - but Kamla shows no fear.

KAMLA:

Saroo! Saroo!

Her screams drowned out by the racket of the train. She is in

hell, but cannot - will not - give up.

INT. LIVING ROOM, BEACH HOUSE - CONTINUOUS

Saroo mirrors her desperation. He gets a beer, stares at the

map. A new colour being used now, for a new search zone.

About 15% of the search complete.

He’s suddenly aware it’s the dead of night. He feels like the

only soul awake.

INT. FOOD COURT, MALL - DAY

TWO MONTHS LATER. CLOSE on a table filled with leftover

Chinese food (where some people have just finished and left

the table), when a SMALL INDIAN HAND comes into frame, the

fingers scooping up the food

-we TRACK up the arm to reveal Guddu - wolfing down the food

with bare hands, greatly enjoying it - and all the while

staring across to -

Saroo (other side of the food court) - who stares right

back, sitting in front of his untouched (western) meal.

EXT. MALL - CONTINUOUS

Saroo steps onto the escalator. The lights and muzak of

capitalism definitely not working wonders for him.

As he descends:
there is someone ascending. It’s Lucy. She

looks grounded and somehow resolved.

They approach each other.

Lucy sees him. Alarm in her eyes. He looks like a crazy man.

Saroo swings across, from his escalator to hers.

As always, drawn by her vivid gaze, her intense life-force.

INT. LIVING ROOM, BEACH HOUSE - DAY

Lucy follows Saroo up the stairs. She walks in and stops dead

at the sight of Saroo’s “Project”.

It’s mind-blowing. An entire wall is plastered in charts,

train-timetables, station-name-lists, grainy images from

Google Earth.

On the Master Wall is a big map - surrounded by smaller ones.

And all the pins ...

The floor layered in books, notes, clothes, take-away

containers.

We go closer to the Master Wall with Lucy, inspecting it.

Dense trails of colored drawing pins on the 400km search

radius - different colors for different train lines.

WALL KEY:
green pin = Mumbai line, red pin = Nagpur line etc.

But our dominant visual information: in the past 6 months,

Saroo has covered a fraction of the search radius. The inner

circle only.

Saroo responds to Lucy’s look of fascination and alarm.

SAROO:

Theoretically it’s not infinite.

She just stares at him.

SAROO (CONT’D)

Lucy - I’m sorry.

EXT. BEACH HOUSE - SOON AFTER

Saroo and Lucy sit on the beach.

LUCY:

What was she like?

SAROO:

Beautiful.

He’s lost in the memory of it - staring out to the ocean,

drawing patterns in the sand.

SAROO (CONT’D)

I’ve been visiting her.

(beat)

Every night I walk those streets

home - home from the dam, home from

the station. I know every single

step of the way. And I imagine that

I’m whispering in her ear. “I’m

here. It’s all right.”

Silence. Lucy knows what he means - she’s imagined the same

thing with her own mother.

SAROO (CONT’D)

How was New York?

LUCY:

Same old, same old.

SAROO:

And now?

Lucy grins. There is good news.

LUCY:

Our funding came through.

SAROO:

That’s great! See, they know how

good you are.

An awkward silence.

Lucy can’t resist a moment longer - she reaches out and combs

his beard with her fingers. Her touch is like manna from

heaven.

SAROO (CONT’D)

I miss you

A pained beat

LUCY:

I saw your mom. She hasn’t been

well.

He doesn’t want to hear this.

SAROO:

She’d freak if she saw me like

this.

LUCY:

You underestimate her.

A long, sad pause.

LUCY (CONT’D)

She needs you.

EXT. KHANDWA MARKETS - DAY (FLASHBACK)

A monsoon day - in the middle of a torrential downpour.

A MERCHANT (55) loads a giant WATERMELON into Saroo’s arms -

MERCHANT:

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Go!

-the merchant keeping dry, looking for a gap in the traffic,

launching Saroo onto the wet road, with his green boulder -

Saroo, ill-prepared for the task, as traffic whizzes by -

almost immediately his feet slide out from under him -

-and a MOTORBIKE blares out of nowhere, careening down upon

Saroo - too late - the motorbike brakes, skids, aqua-glides -

-SLAMS into Saroo - who sits up -YOW! - head bleeding,

watermelon gloop all around him, as the motorcyclist kick-

starts his bike, and drives off.

Saroo touches the blood

- blood in the puddle where he sits, blood on his hand

EXT. ROAD HOME TO GANESH TALAI - DAY (FLASHBACK)

Saroo runs home through the rain, his shirt bunched to his

head, blood and rain streaming down his tiny torso -

-he runs into the UNDERPASS - we recognize this as one of

the “Memory Maps” - and into BLACK INT.

ONE ROOM HOME, GANESH TALAI - DAY (FLASHBACK)

Kamla tends to Saroo’s gash. Saroo’s crying. Shekila’s

wailing. Kamla wipes the wound with a cloth.

Guddu enters, drenched too. It’s still pouring outside.

KAMLA:

Where were you? You were meant to

be looking after him!

Guddu knows he messed up. He looks upset, ashamed. Saroo and

Shekila cry and cry.

But now Kamla draws Saroo closer, and ever so gently she

kisses his forehead better. His crying begins to subside.

INT. LIVING ROOM, BEACH HOUSE - DAY

But now, it’s not Kamla who kisses it better. It’s Lucy -

gentle, loving - kissing that old scar on Saroo’s forehead.

They’ve just made love - all those endorphins and oxytocin

flooding their bodies - on the mattress on the floor.

There’s an edge to it all: Saroo’s life still looks bachelor-

transient and obsessively preoccupied; Lucy is conflicted,

knowing she shouldn’t really have gone down this path.

But god it’s nice, after sex: even with the floating sadness.

LUCY:

That village might not even exist

any more. Entire worlds change in

twenty-five years. I worry that ...

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