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. Ill 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. Shell be accompanied by her father Rajendra Sonkar and Dr Subodh Kumar Singh,the surgeon who operated on her.
