Lion Page #3

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ON THE CHILDREN:
a wild, dangerous energy.

A WIRY BOY, 10, returns Saroo’s stare. No invitation here.

He’s not being accepted. Eyes at ten paces.

LATER. Saroo sleeps - sitting up, knees drawn, head drooping.

FADE TO BLACK.

OVER THE BLACKNESS (PRE-LAP): a SHRIEKING STATION WHISTLE

EXT. HOWRAH PLATFORM - MORNING

Saroo, standing in front of a packed train about to leave, on

the platform where he arrived yesterday.

That WHISTLE blows again. The train lurches into movement.

Saroo’s mind ticking. Here it is. The chance to go home.

At the last possible moment Saroo leaps on the moving train.

INT. CROWDED TRAIN - CONTINUOUS (MORNING)

Saroo pushes inside, stands there holding the pole.

Taking everyone in. He tugs on a LADY’s sari.

SAROO:

Ganestlay?

The woman grunts -huh? - and looks away.

Saroo pushes through. Asks a MAN.

SAROO (CONT’D)

Ganestlay?

Nothing. The man just looks away.

On Saroo:
the invisible boy. Looking up at all these ADULTS.

EXT. TRAIN (ESTABLISHING) - NIGHT

The train hurtles along, now through the night.

EXT. UNNAMED STATION - MORNING

The train pulls into a TERMINUS, where EVERYONE alights.

Saroo jumps up from under that seat. Instantly awake, he runs

for the door. Excited. This should be Ganestlay.

He stands in the doorway - lost, looking up the platform, the

carriage behind him now empty. This is not Ganestlay.

A STATION GUARD:

(re:
the empty train)

This one terminates here.

Saroo doesn’t understand a word he says.

SAROO:

Ganestlay?

STATION GUARD:

(gesturing)

Go! Shoo!

SAROO:

(confused)

Ganestlay?

The guard points to the crowded train on the other platform.

STATION GUARD:

Two minutes. Go!

To Saroo, that’s a Yes to the Ganestlay question.

As he sprints up the overpass to the train on the opposite

platform, we feel his rush of hope.

INT. TRAIN - MOMENTS LATER (MORNING)

Saroo jumps on, squeezes through the crush. So tiny.

He perches himself at a window - on the edge of his seat -

looking out - ahead. Could this really be it?

He catches a LADY looking at him.

SAROO:

(pleased with himself)

Ganestlay.

She smiles. Whatever he’s saying, the little kid is sweet.

He points out the window, as the train starts to move.

SAROO (CONT’D)

Ganestlay.

The lady doesn’t understand. But perhaps she can be helpful.

LADY:

Calcutta.

SAROO:

(trying the word)

Cal-cutta.

It dents his optimism a little. He’s so easily confused.

“Calcutta”. What the hell is she talking about?

He notices a SCHOOL GIRL staring at him. His filthy clothes.

He’s already beginning to look like those street kids.

I/E. (TRAVELLING) TRAIN TO CALCUTTA - AFTERNOON

Saroo, leaning out the open doorway - calm, content. In his

bones:
soon home will reappear.

CLOSER on Saroo as confusion sets in. Then a sinking feeling:

WIDE (Saroo’s POV): we’re slowing, coming into ... Calcutta!

The SHANTY TOWN again. Howrah ahead in the distance. Oh, no.

EXT. HOWRAH STATION - SOON AFTER

We FOLLOW forlorn Saroo as he walks through the CROWDS across

the Howrah Station CONCOURSE and goes up to a TICKET BOOTH.

On tiptoes, his head barely appears at the window.

SAROO:

Ganestlay?

The MAN shoos him away, as people are piling up behind him.

SAROO (CONT’D)

(more insistent)

Ganestlay?

The man is now impatient and shouts at Saroo; the PASSENGERS

push and slap him out of the way.

INT. HOWRAH SUBWAY PASSAGE - LATE AFTERNOON

Saroo, so tiny, as he walks along the VAST, CROWDED subway

passage (SINGLE SHOT, WIDE) - a subterranean nightmare.

EXT. TRACKS LEADING OUT FROM HOWRAH - DUSK

CLOSE:
Saroo stands bathed in the late afternoon light -

gazing out at something. A gentle breeze on his face.

He looks left. Looks right. Looks ahead. Then with a resigned

slump, he turns and walks off.

WIDE:
he’s walking back (towards the station) across an

ENORMOUS COBWEB of entangled train tracks - an IMPENETRABLE

WEAVE that really shows just how impossible getting home is.

EXT. SUBWAY PLATFORM, HOWRAH STATION - NIGHT

LATE; the lost children are curled up, entangled, asleep.

Forlorn Saroo sits down - same wary distance as the other

night. His eyes tired and red. His grimy face tear-stained.

He now looks just like them - the transformation is complete.

Eye contact with Wiry Boy, who’s lying on a bed of cardboard.

Wiry Boy shifts, nods to Saroo - slides out one of the layers

of cardboard that make up his bed. Slides it over to Saroo.

Saroo -I can? An offer of extraordinary generosity.

Saroo walks over, takes it, lies down. A luxury.

Saroo nods Thank-you, smiles shyly. Wiry Boy nods solemnly.

As Saroo closes his eyes, we

FADE TO BLACK.

SILENCE.

HARD CUT INTO:

EXT. SUBWAY PLATFORM, HOWRAH STATION - LATE NIGHT

-Saroo is woken by screaming and sudden pandemonium.

SHADOWY ADULTS are grabbing at the children - it is

terrifying and aggressive and chaotic

ADULTS:

Come here! Hey! You!

-and the children are screaming in terror and scattering.

A STATION OFFICIAL casually lights a cigarette. (In his

nonchalance, a sense of the machinery of corruption.)

Springing into survival mode, Saroo runs for his life -

straight up the end of the platform, and leaps straight off -

INT. TRAIN TUNNEL - CONTINUOUS (LATE NIGHT)

-and into the tunnel. The last thing he sees, as he turns

for one last glance, is Wiry Boy being violently taken away.

Saroo sprints along the tunnel. A MAN chases.

ON Saroo:
a heart-pounding chase. Rats scurrying everywhere.

BODY SNATCHER:

Hey! You come here! You come back!

Suddenly, danger: a train hurtling towards him.

Blinded, Saroo flattens himself against the wall, terrified.

The train barely misses him, as it blares past.

As Saroo stands there, pinned against the wall amid all the

electrical cables, head turned sideways, he sees

-along there, the body snatcher, also pressed to the wall.

Now the train is gone - and here comes the body snatcher -

-nowhere to go but forward - Saroo keeps sprinting - at last

the body snatcher gives up EXT.

BETWEEN STATION AND RIVER - MOMENTS LATER (LATE NIGHT)

-Saroo emerges into the world outside the station - and sees

for the first time what he’s just been inside:

-the great red brick edifice that is Howrah - and beyond it,

huge HOWRAH BRIDGE. An eerie, haunting 3:00 a.m. Stillness.

From INSIDE comes a child’s SCREAM - which propels Saroo to

keep sprinting - away from the station - along the road

EXT. BRIDGE - CONTINUOUS (LATE NIGHT)

-straight up the stairs to a vast forbidding bridge - his

tiny legs struggling to keep going upwards, upwards ...

He reaches the top of the stairs. He looks ahead.

This bridge, stretching into the distance, is the biggest

thing he’s ever seen in his life.

Few cars on the road. Few PEOPLE on the footpath. Pollution

haze like a ghostly fog. It feels haunted.

Ahead:
a couple of Calcutta’s WILD DOGS potter about. They

own this bridge at night.

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