The Ben Mulroney Show - Your next podcast listen -- Stop Rewind: The Lost Boy

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

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The whole way? The whole way. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. And, you know, there are, I just check with chat GPT, there are almost 4.6 million active podcasts in the world. It's really hard to wade through the ones worth listening to, the ones that you should just, you know, the ones that give the world don't, don't love your job.

job job your love and there are those that are of really great of great quality that are producing incredible stories that resonate with people and I'm so glad to be bringing you one of those today please welcome to the show Emma Jane Kirby from the Stop Rewind the Lost Boy podcast Emma thank you so much for being here hi Ben thank you for having me so yeah so this is I would just want to read a little bit about of the as as you described the show. It tells the true story of Taj, a child in India who was kidnapped, falsely declared an orphan, and adopted into a loving Mormon family in Utah, although his adopted family initially knew nothing of his past. He never forgot who he really was or that he was taken,

but without the language or tools to return and with no one who understood his story, the details faded and Taj's past was quietly boxed away until one day when he discovers an old cassette tape he recorded as a child. That's a heck of a launch into a story. isn't it? Isn't it just? Here's this little boy who's been snatched thousands of miles from home.

He's absolutely terrified. He's an Indian little boy. He's never seen a white person and he has no idea why he has no idea what adoption is. He's been sold to be adopted and he doesn't know what that means.

He's just surrounded by two white people who want to cuddle him and pet him and of course they're loving him trying to adore him and trying to make them part him part of their family, and all he sees is terror. He thinks, am I being kidnapped again?

He doesn't understand them. They don't understand him. And his new mom, his adoptive mom, Linda, had the brilliant idea to record him because she thought, you know, this little boy who speaks Tamil, a language we don't understand, he's got to forget that as soon as he goes to school. So she got out in a cassette record, and she told him to talk. And he started to sing into the tape. And then he starts to tell his story.

And how old was he at that time? He was just seven years old. Seven years old. And you can actually hear his mom saying, you know, good boy, good boy. So the adopted parents, what did they know of his story? What were they told? So what they were told, they had a whole host of false documents. They were, he came with the orphanage owner in person.

They were told, this poor little boy's mom and dad are dead. He was in the care of his mom's younger brother, who couldn't take care of him. He was begging on the streets. And, you know, could you give this little boy a home? And so they felt it was God's will, and they were helping a, you know, a struggling child from a developing country. And they were doing their best to raise a little boy, not knowing that this child already had two brothers. They're a huge extended family and a mom and dad. So, Emma, how did this story?

collide with you? So there is a very lovely book by Cameron Wright called The Orphan Keeper, which was a sort of fictionalized account of this story. And I found, we found this book, and we realized maybe it's time that we can tell the whole truth on this story and not sort of coated in fiction. And it is quite a brutal story. I mean, it's, you know, Taj is amazing with us. And he really, really peels back.

memory to give us everything he can. It is, you'll need the tissues then, you know? It's a heartbreaking story, but it's also heartwarming. Yeah. You know, it's a tremendous tale of healing and a testimony, I think, to resilience. I've got so many questions. I don't have a lot of time, so we're going to, I'm trying to try to keep these as tight as possible.

So how old is he now? He is, wow, good question. He doesn't really know because he doesn't have a birth certificate. He hasn't made up one. He was told he was three or four when he was. arrived he wasn't he was seven or eight wow and so so how many years since that and today so he is now around about 54 we think he's 54 now oh geez oh wow wow okay and um what after he went on this a journey of self-discovery what happened his relationship with his

adopted parents well you can imagine it was a very tricky one um he always says that he appreciates them because they gave him a very good life, a life he wouldn't have had. He lived in abject poverty in India. But of course, he wanted his real mom and dad. He knew he had a real mom and dad. So it was, it's a difficult relationship, but he, um, listen to the end of the podcast and you'll see where he comes. He comes full circle. Yes. Um, it's a very beautiful ending. Yeah. And, um, uh, one thing my producer told me, you know, the larger story here is A child goes missing in India every eight minutes. And some of those, some of those, I have no doubt, are abductions like the one year chronically.

That's right. And a lot of them, of course, we know, sold into the sex trade. They're in forced labor. Tage was taken to an orphanage where he spotters, child spotters took him and probably were given a few dollars just to dump him at this orphanage. And the orphanage owner, of course, made money selling him abroad. Did the orphanage owner think he was doing a good thing, or was there something else behind it? Yeah. That's something that you can make up your own minds when you listen to the podcast, because the orphanage owner was a Christian man.

He was, in fact, one of India's first Mormon convert. Oh, interesting. Emma, so from what I heard right before we came to air, there was the discovery of a second tape. Yeah, that was only last year. I'd ask Taj to look out some documents for me and his hand closed on something and it was another tape. He had no recollection of making it, neither did his mother. And what we found on that tape means that, you know, the Disney ending, well, life is messy, isn't it? Yeah.

And yeah, it really changed his worldview, I think, or it challenged it. How were you able to convince Taj that you were the right person to help tell this story, to a completely different audience that might have read that fictionalized account in the book? Well, I think he was ready to tell the truth. He wanted, you know, he knows that life is ugly and that, you know, he wanted also, I think, really to help people with his story, because as I say, it's a story of resilience. And although it's a very personal story to him, I think there's something that we can all take out of this, You know, that there's a message that, you know, we all have our place somewhere in this world.

It just might take us a lifetime to find out where. And I think there's a universal message that, you know, life is terrible. It has so much sadness. But this story really is about the triumph of love, the triumph of faith and the quest to belong. Yeah. Emma, I've got to think this. I don't even know this story yet, and it's shaking me. It's making me feel uneasy. Do you still carry certain aspects of this story with you?

I have to imagine, as someone who lived it in your own way, you can never fully leave it or have it leave you. You're spot on, and anyone who listens to this podcast will never, ever forget the name Chalamutu, which is Taj's real name, ever in their life. I mean, I think I cried every single day for a year. You know, but it was beautiful tears as well because they're tears of joy as well. It's not just Santa.

It's a beautiful, beautiful haunting tale that, you know, that really resonates with us all. But then, my, my, when you hear the little boy sing on that tape, ooh, you're hooked. Emma Jane Kirby, are you working on anything else now? I am, and it's a completely different story. it's much more of a thriller the next one I'm interesting and that one takes us to North America a little bit closer to home

Emma Jane Kirby thank you so much the podcast is Stop Rewind the Lost Boy podcast it's on the Curiouscast network I urge everybody I'm going to download this as soon as I have a chance later today thank you so much what an interesting conversation

and I'm just so happy to have talked to you today. Thank you very much, Ben. Wow. That's, uh, that is impressive. I didn't, I honestly, I did not know. I'm actually a little shaken right now. It's, it's a, it's a, terrifying story. Yeah. I mean, these sort of stories, they happen a lot. And, you know, we were, we, we said that, uh, it sounded like the story of lion. Yeah. Which is the, the, the movie. The Disney version. This is, this is the real version. Well, that, that was great. Uh, yeah. So again, it's called stop rewind, the lost boy. With a Subaru, a vehicle that's built to last come standard.

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