Dev Patel may have made Mumbai famous in his previous stint as an Indian on screen in Slumdog Millionaire, but this time Kolkata owes a debt to him. According to local reports, hotels in areas of Kolkata shown in the Oscar-nominated film Lion — where he plays Saroo Brierley, an orphan adopted by an Australian couple from the City of Joy — have seen increased bookings, as more and more foreign tourists express interest to visit the places.
Patel himself was nominated in the category of Best Supporting Actor for the film based on the novel A Long Way Home, which is again based on the life of the real Saroo Brierly, but lost to Mahershala Ali, who became the first Muslim to win an Oscar. It may be noted that the likes of Omar Sharif had been nominated earlier, but never won the coveted statuette.
The story of Saroo Brierly
Born Sheru Munshi Khan in Madhya Pradesh, Saroo initially lived in poverty with his siblings because his father had left his mother. A five-year-old Saroo — depicted by Sunny Pawar in the movie — accidentally boarded a train that took him to Kolkata the same day one of his older brothers was mowed down by another train. After spending several days in squalor in Kolkata, Saroo was taken to the police, who branded him a lost child and sent him to a government-run adoption home.
It was here that Sue Brierly — played in the film by Nicole Kidman — and her husband John found him and took him back to their home in Tasmania, where he was raised through the formative years of his life. He used the Google Earth technology — then in its infancy but discontinued in 2008 — and bits and pieces of his own memory to find his hometown, travelled there and finally reunited with his family.
Impact on Kolkata and tourism
Lion has been shot on locations in Kolkata, with several Bengali actors in it, including father-son actor duo Kaushik and Riddhi Sen. Whatever has been shown in the film has clearly piqued the interest of foreign tourists, some of whom are reportedly making a beeline to the city to check the locations out.
While local reports claim that hotels in areas in the city have seen an increase of 70 per cent in booking since the film was nominated for the Oscars, Hotels.com marketing head Amit Agrawal has been quoted by a Bengali newspaper as saying that searches for accommodation in what is now a "Hollywood destination" have also increased significantly.
