Review: Smile Pinki  

Posted by Ray in

This past weekend I saw the Oscar winning short film 'Smile Pinki'. It is a short-film about how a team of doctors and social workers in Varanasi find and operate on kids who have a cleft lip. It was one of the those films that brings a smile at the end. The film is about two kids Ghuturu and Pinki. The film documents the pain, and in some cases the humiliation the parents and the kids have to go through because of the cleft lip.

Luckily for them they come across this social worker who says that they can have their kids cleft lip fixed for free if they come to Banaras. Ghuturu's mom borrows Rs. 500 and takes her son to Banaras while Pinki and her dad cover most of the distance on foot. Once they reach the hospital, they see hundreds of parents with their kids. The rest of the documentary shows how the hospital treats the kids and their road back to 'normal' life.

The doctor estimates that there are at least a million kids in India with a cleft lip.

The documentary is well made. It clearly shows that the director has taken efforts to gain the confidence of the parents. It looks so natural and at the end makes one feel happy for those kids. The background music is typically 'Indian' and sounds great. It is in Hindi with English subtitles.

A commendable effort and I'm sure Pinki's smile would have made the director more happy than the Oscar.

If you would like to donate to SmileTrain, you can do so here.

Lift  

Posted by Ray in

This weekend when I was driving in Mansfield, a frail old man asked for a 'lift'. In other words, he wanted a ride. I did not stop my car. The old man was well dressed and didn't look like one of those weird looking hitchhikers. Though Kavitha and I wanted to stop the car and give the old man a ride, we just didn't. I wasn't sure if it was legal. I hoped that a cop may drive by and offer the old man a drive. I felt bad later.

In India when I used to go to school from Madhavaram to Perambur, my friends and I used to thumb people in bi-cycles to get a ride from Moolakadai to Sembiam. We used to sit in the cycles' 'carrier'. That saved us at least 50 paise a day and with that we brought ourselves a samosa during the morning break. This used to be a routine. In the evenings, the company buses of SRF (Sri Ram Fibres) will stop and pick up students at Moolakadai and drop us off at Madhavaram. It used to be fun.Now I had a chance to offer someone a ride and I just couldn't and I didn't.

திருப்பல்லாண்டு  

Posted by Ray in

பல்லாண்டு பல்லாண்டு பல்லாயிரத்தாண்டு
பலகோடி நூறாயிரம்
மல்லாண்ட திண்தோள் மணிவண்ணா உன்
சேவடி செவ்விதிருக்க் காப்பு

What it means:
Oh! ManivaNNa! One who has strong shoulders that killed the wrestlers
(chaaNooran, mushtikan, keechakaa, Kamsaa, et al in Krishna Avtaar)! May
Your Lotus Feet be protected for very many years! Many thousands of years!

Many crores of (millions of), hundreds of thousand years!