She smiled, and the world smiled with her

THE BRIGHT spark who strutted down the red carpet on Monday, grinning, couldn't even smile for the first six years of her life.

Born with a cleft palate, eight-year-old Pinki Sonkar was a lonely, ridiculed child till a 45-minute surgical procedure transformed her life. And her journey has captured hearts around the world. Forty-minute documentary Smile Pinki won an Oscar for Best Documentary (Short) last month.

It's not just Pinki that's smiling now. The short film has earned US filmmaker Megan Mylan a gold statuette - and Smile Train, the organisation that helped restore Pinki's grin, is hoping the documentary will spread awareness and help them in their cause.

Smile Train, a New York- based global charitable organisation, has already conducted over 1.5 lakh surgeries in India.

Working across 76 developing countries, the 10-year-old organisation sponsors surgeries and helps train local medical professionals, so the relatively simple reconstructions of clef lips and cleft palates can continue.

So far in India, 160 hospitals and over 250 surgeons have been accredited and over 1.5 lakh surgeries sponsored.

About one child in every 700 is born with a cleft palate or cleft lip. For India, this translates into over 35,000 babies each year.

"Clefts are really much more of an economic problem than a medical one," said Dr Subodh Kumar Singh, the Smile Train surgeon who operated on Pinki.

Dr Singh is based in Varanasi and has raised a small trauma centre that has become world's largest cleft centre in less than four years. He has operated upon 6,700 children already.

Back at Pinki's Uttar Pradesh village, Pinki's father Rajendra spoke to Hindustan Times: "It was a miserable life for her Whemver she went, she was made fun of," he said, as he packed to leave with his daughter for one of the most glamorous events in the world. "Now, she smiles like every other child... maybe more."


Source: Hindustan Times