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I think she’s in the lowest caste in India, the “Untouchables”.

The article says he and his brother were "sweepers" on the train. That's a euphemism - it doesn't mean pushing a broom, but that they cleared away human waste. That means they are Dalit or Untouchables.

And what of the brother with whom Saroo had originally gone travelling? Unfortunately, the news was not good. "A month after I had disappeared my brother was found in two pieces on a railway track." His mother had never known whether foul play was involved or whether the boy had simply slipped and fallen under a train.

Such a sad story but in a way, getting lost and being adopted by a family in Tasmania was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to him. I saw this story on Fox the other day. He seems like a very bright and articulate young man and very grateful for the orphanage that took him off the streets and to his adoptive parents who gave him a much better life. I can however understand why he wanted to go back to India to find his mother and his family. It’s not as if he was abandoned and his mother was so grateful and relieved to know he was still alive and doing well; she’d never forgotten him or gave up hope that she’d see him again one day.

I wonder however why he doesn’t take his mother back to Tasmania with him given that she is in a low caste and very poor. Perhaps he will now that he found her.

"...they are Dalit or Untouchables."

Imagine how we take for granted, in the U.S. or Australia, that people naturally have the freedom, given the opportunity, to "marry up."

That hasn't been the norm historically and still is an anomaly in most societies.

As a rock band or cultural phenomena the Grateful Dead probably will be remembered for a mixed record.

I, however, will always appreciate them for the degree that they facilitated me marrying well above my station.