Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.I arrive early, but she beats me to it. I spot her as she strides up the front steps of The Astor Grill in Hobart, vibrant in a polka-dot dress. She slips into the restaurant seconds before me and heads straight for the owner who knows her well. I follow her in and introduce myself.
The Astor Gril's crisp skinned Tasmanian salmon with potato confit, roasted capsicum & golden apple broth.. She began writing it three years ago, urged on by Saroo to tell her side of the story. He had no idea what it would reveal. Brierley had kept her past secret from Saroo and her second son, Mantosh, also adopted from India.
While Saroo endured poverty in India beyond the conception of most Australians, before fate ripped him away from his first family, he was a loved and happy child. Brierley’s childhood, however, was unrelentingly miserable. She wonders in her book whether the damage caused by the violence and cruelty she witnessed as a child somehow inspired her to seek out other vulnerable children to help and love. The answer seems self-evident.
The memory of that priest – who Brierley could not name as he is still alive – infuriates her to this day. “When I had what I call my breakdown, and I had that vision, my life was just so ugly, but I did have a choice. I could let that squash me down, I could turn into a useless kowtowing woman, or I could have a real crack at it, a better life,” she says, eyes flashing with determination.
She can do a mean Indian banquet, though. She and John waited 16 years to adopt a child, privately holding firm to their ideals and brushing off the inevitable questions about their childlessness. They could not justify bringing a biological child into an overpopulated world in which so many children were suffering.“I’d like the human species to stop breeding. It’s out of hand. Let’s face it, the planet is groaning,” she says.
Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)
G_Coslovich