Pinki Sonkar gives a puzzled expression when you ask her what an Oscar means. After a little prodding from her father, she smiles and replies, “Pinki ko America jaana hai, Oscar leke aana hai.” The eight-year-old has never seen a movie, but says, “I am excited about attending the Oscar ceremony. I’ll meet all the stars.” A resident of Rampur Dhavaia village in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, Sonkar features in the Oscar-nominated documentary titled Smile Pinki. Directed by American filmmaker Megan Mylan, the 40-minute documentary captures her life from ostracism to public acceptance, after she underwent a surgery to cure her birth defect of an upper cleft lip in March 2007. “First my friends at school mocked at me and called me hothkata (cut-lipped) and now they are encouraging me to go to America and win the Oscar,” she says. On the D-day, Pinki will walk the red carpet dressed in a bright ghagra choli. She’ll be accompanied by her father Rajendra Sonkar and Dr Subodh Kumar Singh, the surgeon who operated on her.
