Smile Pinki win brings cheer to UP village

While Slumdog Millionaire made a clean sweep at the Oscars, another unlikely star from India has been born. The protagonist of Smile Pinki, Pinki Sonkar, is a celebrity in Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.
The 40-minute short film Smile Pinki directed by American filmmaker Magan Mylan, is about an Indian girl who is ostracised because of her cleft lip. In the film, she undergoes corrective surgery which enables her to enjoy a normal childhood. Her story has moved the judges at the Oscars, as the film bagged the Best Short Documentary award. Pinki had stopped smiling as she was embarrassed of her cleft lip. The Smile Train, an international organisation that offers free surgeries for cleft-lip patients all over the world, arrived in Pinki's village. In her film, Mylan has documented how this surgery has changed Pinki's life.
The Oscar also brings the underdeveloped Rampur Dabai hamlet into the limelight and the authorities have now committed to build roads and provide drinking water and solar electricity. The Dabai village has a population of around 2,000. Most of the people are poor and work as labourers for their livelihood.
As a part of development, the district authorities will also renovate the primary school in the village. The villagers believe that the award will raise the popularity of the village and usher in progress.