Born into Brothels
Watched a movie on Sunday afternoon. It was a documentary, an Oscar winning documentary called "Born into Brothels". It was about children born to prostitutes and living in red light areas. This particular documentary was about a bunch of 8-12 year olds from Kolkatta, India.
Seeing the lives of the kids I realised that I was brought up in a parallel universe totally cocooned and untouched by crime, misery and reality. What I found totally fascinating was that despite being aware of the fact that most of their mothers are working prostitutes these children still giggled and fooled around like kids even thought they are totally robbed of all their innocence.
One little girl said, " We have to accept that life is sad and painful and get on with it" For me at age 10, sad and painful was not getting an ice-cream when i asked for it. For her, it is fighting off the pimps and the pressure of going into the "line".
I must say the movie is inspiring, a NY photographer (she made the movie) lives with these kids and teaches them photography. Gets them enrolled into good boarding schools. Organises exhibitions of their photos both in NY and in Kolkatta. And even gets one talented little fellow to go to Amsterdam to a photographers convention. When you look at all the crime and misery in the world this lady probably made just a tiny difference.
But even one child is educated and taken off the streets it is mission accomplished.
Seeing the lives of the kids I realised that I was brought up in a parallel universe totally cocooned and untouched by crime, misery and reality. What I found totally fascinating was that despite being aware of the fact that most of their mothers are working prostitutes these children still giggled and fooled around like kids even thought they are totally robbed of all their innocence.
One little girl said, " We have to accept that life is sad and painful and get on with it" For me at age 10, sad and painful was not getting an ice-cream when i asked for it. For her, it is fighting off the pimps and the pressure of going into the "line".
I must say the movie is inspiring, a NY photographer (she made the movie) lives with these kids and teaches them photography. Gets them enrolled into good boarding schools. Organises exhibitions of their photos both in NY and in Kolkatta. And even gets one talented little fellow to go to Amsterdam to a photographers convention. When you look at all the crime and misery in the world this lady probably made just a tiny difference.
But even one child is educated and taken off the streets it is mission accomplished.
posted by D at 7:45 AM
1 Comments:
There was once a man walking on the sands of the ocean, picking up the oysters on the beach, throwing them back into the water. He was asked, "why are you doing this one by one? Dont you realize that there are millions of them on the shores all over the world and it wont make a differnece to all of them?" He said, looking at the one in his hand, and throwing it into the sea, "but it made a difference to that one"
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