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.