Thanks to Slumdog Millionaire's dominating performance at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony this February, 2009 will forever be remembered as the year India mesmerised hearts and minds at the Oscars.
But it's a lesser known India-focused 2009 Oscar winner -- a 40 minute documentary by US documentarian Megan Mylan on Smile Train's [an international charity that provides cleft lip and cleft palate surgery to children in need] operations -- that might be remembered as having had a greater impact.
Smile Pinki follows the journey of Pinki Sonkar, a young girl from Dabai village in rural Uttar Pradesh, as she is swept up by Smile Train professionals and quite literally given a new lease on life.
Like some 300,000 young impoverished children around the world before them, Pinki and her pal Ghutaru are both given free cleft palate surgeries at a hospital in Varanasi, by the selfless Dr Subodh Kumar Singh.
Mylan faithfully captures every aspect of the experience, in Bhojpuri and Hindi, with English subtitles.
Pinki's painfully ostracised by others in her village, who view her cleft as some sort of horrible, karma-driven affliction. A tender 7-year-old, she's not attending school and her parents seem to think her cross is one that must be bared permanently.
That's when Pankaj -- a social worker who does rounds in UP villages, preaching the Smile Train gospel -- shows up and offers Pinki's parents the offer of a lifetime.
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