SMILE PINKI SMILE

Hi !

I have been wanting to start my own blog for a long, long time and finally I have done it!

There were lot of events that unfolded which gave me the itch to put pen to paper. First there was the Mangalore pub incident…… but so much has been said, written and done (or not done) about it that I prefer to write about the ‘Oscars’!

I have not seen most of the films that gained entry into the Oscars, but, like many curious fellow Indians, I too saw ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. No wonder they say curiosity kills! It killed any future curiosity that I might have developed over an ‘Indian’ film made by anyone beyond the Indus! Now that we know what they think about us, why bother? And, like everyone else who saw SDM I too have an opinion about the film …..

The film has won the Oscars for reasons beyond layman comprehension. But it must be said that it helped to reinstate the clichéd portrayal of India. I have had friends, in the Uk, who told me that they had the misfortune to watch ‘Slumdog’ with fellow audiences who generated noises reflecting dismay, disgust or disapproval in turns! Apparently, there was one man, among the movie-watchers, who even declared that he would never ever want to visit India! So much for Danny Boyle’s Oscar speech of dedicating the Oscar to Mumbai! But thanks to Boyle there is a mad rush, among foreign tourists of course, to imbibe the essence of the slums in Daravi, in Mumbai, where the film was shot!

‘Slumdog’ pretends to have exposed the grotesque underbelly of the most -happening nation in the world today ……..and guess what ? they have actually won an Oscar for it!! Earlier India was , in the eyes of the West, the land of snake charmers, pot -bellied children with runny noses, Gandhi, slums, yoga and the Himalayas! Now, defunct toilets, beggar mafia and Hindu-Muslim riots have been added to the dismal list!

Of course , the fact that A R Rahman, the ‘Mozart of Madras’, competed with some of the World’s best to win the Oscar is a cause for celebration!

Meanwhile, basking quietly in the spotlight of new-found glory was the India-based, true life documentary film ‘Smile Pinki’, which won an Oscar in the short film category. The protagonist of the film, Pinki Sonkar, whose life transformed magically from being an outcast with a cleft lip to a sought after child, symbolizes hope in futuristic India.

The charitable organization, ‘The Smile Train’, which has brought smiles on the faces of thousands of poor Indian children suffering from a cleft lip or a cleft palate has vowed to wipe out the deformity from India.
As long as the smile train keeps chugging there is reason for children like Pinki to smile.

Good going Pinky! And keep smiling!