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Mum / Sue Brierley
Kamla is Saroo’s birth mother. She married Saroo’s birth father when she was nineteen, and it was an unconventional marriage: Kamla was Hindu, while her husband was Muslim. They had four children, Guddu, Kallu, Saroo, and Shekila, over twelve years. When Kamla was pregnant with Shekila, her husband took a second wife and effectively abandoned the family. Kamla is then forced to perform hard labor for little money. Saroo loves and admires her when he’s a child; he thinks she’s beautiful and strong. She has customary face tattoos and always wears a red sari, so she’s easy to spot when she returns from work. When both Saroo and Guddu disappear, Kamla is devastated and even considers killing herself and her remaining children, but she manages to make the best of her situation. With only two children she can afford to send Kallu and Shekila to school, and she eventually moves to a nicer house in Ganesh Talai. She never gives up on her hope that Saroo is alive and well. Sometime between Saroo’s disappearance and his return, she converts to Islam and changes her name to Fatima. Though she has the right to file for divorce under Islamic law, she remains married to Saroo’s birth father. The day before Saroo returns, she experiences a vision of him, which reinforces her belief in destiny. Kamla insists that Mum and Dad are Saroo’s parents, as they’re the ones who raised him to be the man he is when she meets him as an adult. With this, she effectively gives Saroo permission to feel that he made the right choice by consenting to his adoption. By the end of the memoir, Saroo is in the process of buying Kamla a home so that she can be comfortable in her old age. She asks that Saroo marry and have children before she dies—she values family and wants to make sure Saroo will have a family of his own to care for him upon her death.
Kamla Quotes in A Long Way Home
The A Long Way Home quotes below are all either spoken by Kamla or refer to Kamla. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
2. Getting Lost
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This episode stayed with me as an example of my mother's courage in turning to face down her pursuers, and also of the vulnerability of the poor in India. Really, it was just luck that the crowds backed off.
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10. Meeting My Mother
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Even at this first meeting, she told me she was grateful to my parents who had raised me in Australia, and that they had the right to call me their son because they had raised me from a child and made me the man I was today. Her only concern for me, she said, was that I should have the very best life I could.
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12. Reaching Out
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And even though it was exhausting to go over my story again and again with the media, I thought I had a kind of duty to do it, because it might help people—what had happened to me was remarkable, and might offer hope to others who wanted to find their lost family but thought it impossible.
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I began to realize that just as my search for my mother had in some ways shaped my life, her faith that I was alive had shaped hers. She couldn't search, but she did the next best thing: she stayed still.
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Epilogue
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I am astonished at the miraculous turns in my story—my mum's vision that led her to intercountry adoption, My Indian mother praying and seeing an image of me the day before we were reunited...It is sometimes difficult not to imagine some forces at work that are beyond my understanding.
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Get the entire A Long Way Home LitChart as a printable PDF.
Kamla Quotes in A Long Way Home
The A Long Way Home quotes below are all either spoken by Kamla or refer to Kamla. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
2. Getting Lost
Quotes
This episode stayed with me as an example of my mother's courage in turning to face down her pursuers, and also of the vulnerability of the poor in India. Really, it was just luck that the crowds backed off.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
10. Meeting My Mother
Quotes
Even at this first meeting, she told me she was grateful to my parents who had raised me in Australia, and that they had the right to call me their son because they had raised me from a child and made me the man I was today. Her only concern for me, she said, was that I should have the very best life I could.
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12. Reaching Out
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And even though it was exhausting to go over my story again and again with the media, I thought I had a kind of duty to do it, because it might help people—what had happened to me was remarkable, and might offer hope to others who wanted to find their lost family but thought it impossible.
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I began to realize that just as my search for my mother had in some ways shaped my life, her faith that I was alive had shaped hers. She couldn't search, but she did the next best thing: she stayed still.
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Epilogue
Quotes
I am astonished at the miraculous turns in my story—my mum's vision that led her to intercountry adoption, My Indian mother praying and seeing an image of me the day before we were reunited...It is sometimes difficult not to imagine some forces at work that are beyond my understanding.
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