Born into Brothels...

I had been thinking to write some thing here, some thing very interesting, some thing that will bring the interest of writing back in me. I thought I should write some thing about the Telangana. I thought I should write my experience in the hospital few months back when I was undergone a minor surgery. I though I should put my first short story. But I never thought that I would write some thing like this until I reached the middle of the documentary that I finished watching few minutes back, the 'Born into brothels'.

My friend Shiva was successful in making me download this documentary of 600 odd mega bytes of size after repeated attempts of reminding me in spite of my least levels of interests in watching documentary films. All I knew about documentaries was that these are the less than two minute length films casted in theaters before the actual film begins, these are the films made by those filmmakers who have no skills of filmmaking but some influence at the government authorities and that they make their living by making these films on a Kajuraho temple or on a Godawari river or some thing else of that sort. My opinions were slightly changed after watching an interview by Meera Nair few months back but that was very slight.

Coming back to the film, the film is about a dozen of kids born in the brothel houses of the red light district (Sonagachi), Kolkatta and an American photographer's (Zana Briski) association with them. The film starts with the introduction of the kids, each of them talking about them and their friends. One is taken care by her aunt who plans to sell her to Mumbai. One is taken care by his grand mother and has no parents. One is taken care by his father who is addicted to smoking. To the most part, the meaning of the phrase 'taken care' should better be reversed fit into the context. Every story is more or less the same, but more miserable than the other.

The photographer who recently moved from Newyork to Sonagachi gives each of those kids a camera and asks them to take photos. Teaches them the fundamentals of the photography. Takes them to a zoo parks. Takes them to beaches. Takes them to the Howrah bridge. Leaves them free, completely free and allows them to photograph on their own. As the time passes, she observes that Avijit, one of the kids who was exceptionally well at drawing being very good at capturing the emotions on human faces, another one being more interested in editing the photos, one being good at framing, one being good at taking photos on streets and so on. She once tries to get a four of them into a school. No school would be interested in taking them in due to their red light family background. One school asks for ration card copy. She tries for more than a month to get a duplicate copy of the missed ration card only to understand the levels of commitment and competence of the related government authorities has. Finally a school agrees to take few students in but only on a condition that the children should under go an HIV test and a positive result would stop them from getting in. For her happiness, all of them would result in -ve and get into the school.

She moves back to Newyork to arrange exhibitions of photographs and there by to raise funds for their education. There would be a great response. One of the leading magazine publishes a photo by the kid in its front page. Most of the photographs would be praised by critics. An organization named World Press Photo selects Avijit as one of the six kids (from among four thousand applicants) who would get the opportunity to visit Frankfort for a week and exhibit the photos to the visitors from all over the world attending the exhibition.

She comes back to India with great happiness but only to learn that Avijith's mother was killed by fire set by her pimp and that Avijith is neglecting studies, let alone photography. She arranges an exhibition locally in Kolkatta and that sees a great response from the visitors and from media. All leading news papers and tv channels cover it. She tries to get passport for Avijit but his redlight background becomes a hurdle. After more than two months of efforts, her last attempt succeeds and he gets the passport. He visits Frankfort. Get to attend the exhibition.

A social service organization named Sabera takes some these kids into its boarding school. Avijit joins Future Hope school. Manik's father would not let him to go to school. Puja's mother withdraws her from Sabera, a few months later. Shanti leaves the school of her own accord. Gour still lives at home and hoping to go to school. Tapasi runs away from home and joins Salnap school. Suchitra's aunt refuses to let her leave the brothel. Kochi chooses to stay at Sabera, being happy and doing well. This ends the film.

Later on, I learnt that this move won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and many more prestigious awards. I also read in wiki that the photographer started a non profit organization named 'Kids with Cameras' continuing similar kind of work at different parts of the world. The co-director of the movie, Ross Kauffman says that the total sum of Rs 4.5 million earned by the movie will be spent on the education for the children of prostitutes in India.

The amazing part about this movie is that it is real. I saw many movies those were made inspired by real incidents, those which are very close to reality but this movie, being a 'real' movie will have a great influence on my career and on my life. This changed my opinion on documentary movies and on movies as a whole.

My favorite line from the movie is 'Nobody here understands anything but money'. This is the English translation to a part of what a kid replies to the photographer when the photographer asks her if her mother can attend the photo exhibition held in Kolkatta. She says in her reply, 'My mother needs to take care of my months old sister. If someone else has to attend my sister, they would charge 10 Rs. Nobody here understands anything but money'.