Born into Brothels

I recently caught this show in the cinemas and it was sort of an eye-opener to me. It is a story about the children who are born in the red light districts of Sonagchi, Calcutta. It was only able to be covered by a photographer Zana Briski who lived and got attached to the children of Sonagchi whom she had been teaching photography to, and had decided to direct such a documentary. Although slightly obstrusive, this film is as close as it gets to depicting the actual life of the living conditions and particular from the perspectives of the children in Sonagchi. It is sad to realize (again a hit from reality) that there are people out there who live in such an environment. Unlike the people of Africa of whom we normally compare to to show how fortunate we are, the children of Sonagchi are different in the sense that they are not only poor, but it could also well be the most "dirty" of the world. Prostitutes sprawled all along the streets, drug addicts slumping against walls and their official language should just be changed to vulgarity. Practically everyone in that district has done something unclean in the lives to earn their meals. It is also sad to see that the children have also been sucked into this seemingly iron cage and social spiral - with many of their parents and guardians happy to see them "join the line". It is even more depressing to have knowledge how these children who are rather bright and talented actually have their dreams of making it big shattered as they become fatalists of their lives. When asked whether they can escape from this life, many of them said "there is no way" - and that with a smile depicting hopelessness and yet of grudging acceptance like oh well that's my life let me try to be happy. Zana Briski has done just about everything in her power to get the children out of this slum by doing what she does best - photography. She has even gone out of her way to get them into boarding schools just to escape and lead normal lives. Overall, I must say that her efforts have not gone unrewarded as she had managed to organise an exhibition of their photos and also send 1 talented and lucky young boy to Amsterdam for an exclusive invite only experience. Here is a photo of that boy (Avijit) and one of his photos I managed to get online. Btw this boy is really talented having won many awards for drawing and now photography as well. Cool!!

For those who want to know what happened to the children in the end, if I remembered correctly only Shanti, Manik and Avijit went into boarding schools and Suchitra being the first to join the line of prostitutes.

On a side note, I was talking to Anil about this show and he actually told me that Nepali families sell their daughters into prostitution for a measly $500. That's how sad and desperate people can get.