Lion Page #2

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SAROO:

I’m asleep ... Don’t bother me.

Guddu looks around. Annoyed with himself. Back to Saroo:

GUDDU:

I’ll go sort things for tomorrow.

Then we can find a place to sleep.

SAROO:

Bring back a thousand jalebis.

GUDDU:

Very funny. Wait here. You don’t

move, okay?

Guddu leaps off the end of the platform. Familiar with it.

ON Saroo:
deep asleep in an instant.

ON Guddu:
tiny figure, hopping his way along the tracks.

FADE TO BLACK.

EXT. BURHANPUR PLATFORM - LATER (VERY LATE NIGHT)

FADE UP:
Saroo wakes. The platform now all but deserted -

empty, haunted. A few scattered, shadowy MEN in the distance.

Saroo looks around. Coming to consciousness. Where is Guddu?

SAROO:

Guddu?

Those shadowy MEN in the distance, huddled, smoking.

We feel Saroo’s total vulnerability to this weird open space.

A big empty train, standing in front of him.

SAROO (CONT’D)

Guddu?

He looks up at the giant WATER TOWER behind the platform.

Looming, almost alive - like some brooding iron monster.

What to do? Where on earth is Guddu? One of the shadowy men

gives Saroo one of those stares that never break.

A moment of decision. CLOSE on Saroo.

And just like that -step! -Saroo steps up onto the train.

INT. CARRIAGE - CONTINUOUS (NIGHT)

Little Saroo just stands there. The carriage is dark, empty.

SAROO:

Guddu?

He walks down the aisle to the end of the carriage. He tries

the connecting door. It’s locked.

He stands in the doorway, looking out. Still no Guddu.

He retreats back inside. Safer here.

He sits. Knees drawn. Taking in the measure of this new empty

space. His lids heavy. He lies there. Spooked, but fading.

He curls up. Fighting sleep so hard. Then his lids fall shut.

HARD CUT:

INT. CARRIAGE - DAY

Daylight. CLOSE on Saroo, eyelids flickering in sleep, head

rocking gently, as a sunbeam creeps across his face.

AUDIO:
the distant, soothing clickety-clack of the train.

POV:
we’re in a sun-drenched, empty train carriage. (And

suddenly that clickety-clack is pretty damn loud.)

ON Saroo:
as he lurches awake. His catastrophe has begun.

As he stands up, taking in his surroundings, sheer terror

-he’s like a feral animal, realizing it’s trapped.

He slaps his hands to the window, looks out.

Panicking, he jumps across the aisle. Looks out.

He runs up the aisle. Tries the lock of the connecting door.

The main door:
locked. Distraught, he looks out the window.

POV (REVERSE):
an endless expanse of ochre plains racing by.

SAROO:

(through the bars)

Guddu! Ammi!* [*Mummy] Shekila!

He sits back, mind racing. Frozen, mute.

HIGH AERIAL - CONTINUOUS (DAY)

The train hurtles across the land. [We note the rest of the

train is crowded. Only the last carriage, Saroo’s, is empty.]

INT. CARRIAGE - LATER (AFTERNOON)

Time has passed. Saroo is staring numbly at the ceiling.

The train lurches, slows. Saroo tenses. Jumps up, hopeful.

Out the window (POV): we’ve entered a mid-sized TOWN.

The train comes to a stop at last. But where is the platform?

Saroo cranes his neck at the window bars once again.

POV (REVERSE):
oblique angle, partial view, we catch a

GLIMPSE of the human activity on the platform further along.

EXT. TRAIN ON SMALL-TOWN PLATFORM (ESTABLISHING) - CONTINUOUS

WIDE EXTERIOR, we now see what’s actually going on: Saroo’s

carriage, the last one, hangs over the end of the platform.

Little Saroo, craning at the bars of a window.

INT. CARRIAGE - SECONDS LATER (AFTERNOON)

Saroo is back at the carriage door, trying the handle, on tiptoes

trying to get a glimpse out the window.

(His POV):
just near him, legs dangling over the end of the

platform, sits a single STREET URCHIN (10), black with grime.

Saroo bangs on the door window.

SAROO:

Help me!

EXT. PLATFORM - CONTINUOUS (AFTERNOON)

From the urchin’s POV: Saroo, trapped behind the dirty pane.

SAROO:

Help me!

The urchin stares blankly at Saroo. In his own desolation, he

can’t find the energy to even engage, let alone help.

SAROO (CONT’D)

Please! Help me!

But the train begins to pull out. Gathering speed.

The urchin turns his head, and gazes at Saroo, receding.

INT. CARRIAGE - CONTINUOUS (AFTERNOON)

As the train continues to gather speed we see, over Saroo’s

shoulder, all the people on the crowded platform flashing by.

SAROO:

(flailing, screaming)

Help! Help!

But not a soul notices him - and then the station is gone.

HIGH AERIAL - AFTERNOON

The train continues across the vast landscape, whose colors

have shifted now - less ochre, more verdant.

INT. CARRIAGE - LATER (LATE AFTERNOON)

Saroo, just sitting. Weeping forlorn, hopeless tears.

INT. CARRIAGE - LATER (NIGHT)

NIGHT. Saroo on all fours under the seats again, scavenging.

He lunges for a peach stone. Well and truly eaten. He gnaws

and sucks on it ravenously, getting at the last strands.

INT. CARRIAGE, SLOWING INTO CALCUTTA - LATER (NIGHT)

Saroo watches out the window a dark, unfamiliar CITY

streaming past. A vast SHANTY TOWN at night. And such NOISE!

The train begins to slow, noticeably. Saroo, pressed to the

window, wide-eyed. Scared. But desperate to get off!

INT. CARRIAGE, ARRIVING AT HOWRAH STATION - LATER (NIGHT)

As the train lurches to a stop, Saroo is poised at the door,

tensed, wary, alert. PEOPLE crowd the door.

To Saroo, they seem frightening, ugly: a Boschean nightmare

of faces, all crowding at the door.

How’s this going to work? His hand tight on the handle.

AUDIO:
a HYDRAULIC AIR RELEASE SOUND, and the door unlocks.

It slides OPEN, and instantly the CROWDS are PILING IN.

Saroo, caught off-guard, pushes forward. THROWS himself into

the crowd, like a stage diver. No way he isn’t getting off.

EXT. HOWRAH PLATFORM - CONTINUOUS (NIGHT)

The HORDES push on board as tiny Saroo fights his way out.

Desperate. Lunging. Swimming his way through them.

He pops clear. Free. But then, before him: the chaos of

Howrah, Calcutta’s main terminus - 26 platforms. WIDE, the

place is indescribably vast. The size of a small town.

He turns in a circle - every direction equally hopeless.

He steps up to a WOMAN.

SAROO:

Ganestlay?

WOMAN:

(waving him off)

I have no money.

To a MAN IN RAILWAY UNIFORM walking by:

SAROO:

Ganestlay?

But the man keeps walking.

Saroo sees ANOTHER OFFICIAL. He tugs on the man’s trousers.

But the man just BATS Saroo away - a real clip on the ears.

Turning in a bewildered circle, Saroo spots a STREET KID (5)

drinking from a water fountain then walking off.

Saroo steps up, tippy-toes, and drinks. And drinks. Two days

without food or water. This is the Fountain of Life.

Then his eyes search for that street kid.

INT. SUBWAY PLATFORM - MOMENTS LATER (NIGHT)

Up the far end of the platform, the kid sits down with a

bunch of STREET KIDS, all of them so blackened with grime.

CLOSER:
some rowdy, some quiet. Some already asleep.

ON SAROO:
studying them. Cautiously approaching.

He sits, twenty metres away, eyeing them warily.

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