Oscar-winning ‘Smile Pinki’ fame girl from UP is back to poverty, says, 'The fairytale ended and...'

The 96th edition of The Academy Awards (Oscars) recently concluded and we saw all the Indians cheering with joy after seeing the glimpses of SS Rajamouli’s RRR during the Best Song nomination and while paying tribute to stunt directors and stunt co-ordinators.

But do you remember, in 2009 Smile Pinki , a film narrating the story of Pinki and Ghutaru from the rural part of India, winning an Oscar for Best Documentary? The documentary talked about receiving corrective surgery for the cleft lips of the two children.

While during the 2009 Oscars phase, little Pinki enjoyed the best time of her life, she is back to poverty and works on the same piece of gifted land.

“Those were the best moments of my life. It was like a fairytale in real life. Boarding a flight, trip to Los Angeles, wearing expensive clothes, staying in plush hotels, enjoying a variety of food that my father and I could not even imagine and meeting neatly dressed people — it was like the story of Cinderella, the bedtime story for kids. I make sure that I watch the Oscar awards every year, as it’s the only way to relive the moments, which I once lived. But, in no time, the fairytale ended and I was back to my real life, which is full of pain, trauma and poverty," said Pinki to News18.

Recalling being born with a cleft lip, she added, “I was socially ostracised because of my deformity. I remember being treated as an outcast by my schoolmates. My relatives didn’t want me around and used to consider me ‘inauspicious’. People used to call me ‘honth katiya’ and mock me. I was lucky to be spotted by an NGO, Smile Train India, and a Varanasi-based plastic surgeon Subodh Kumar Singh, one of its associates, who performed my surgery for free. The NGO freed me from the trauma. That is how my story was picked up by the documentary film director. It made me world famous."

Smile Pinki was directed by American documentary filmmaker Megan Mylan.