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Born into brothels

Some gutsy kids from a red light area embark on a journey to change their lives

PHOTOS: M. PERIASAMY

SLICE OF LIFE Between hope and despair

The camera follows the truth in `Born into brothels'. The 77th Academy Award winning documentary feature written and directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski brings the alternating world of hope and despair of the children who live at Sonagachi in Kolkata. It is where their mothers work as commercial sex workers. The Cinema Club of Coimbatore screened the documentary to film lovers in Coimbatore.

As Avijith, one of the kids in the film puts it: "We live in chaos; people in villages are much happier than us... there is nothing called hope in my future."

The story

Zana, a documentary photographer, goes to Kolkata to photograph commercial sex workers and she befriends their children and teaches them photography.

She gives each of the children a point-and-shoot 35mm film camera. That empowers them to look at the world with new eyes. It also gives them hope to embark on a journey to move out of the community. Avijith's photographs take him to Amsterdam to be part of a children's jury at a World Press Photo Foundation photo exhibit in Amsterdam. Much of their work was used in the film, and the filmmakers also documented the classes as well as daily life in the red light district.

Though Zana helps the boys and girls by sending them to boarding schools, many end up leaving school and returning to their families. But the documentary ends on a positive note as two kids Kochi and Avijith stay on and pursue their studies.

"The narrative is based on the observation style of story telling. The director makes you conscious of her presence and drives home the message that `what I'm seeing and saying are the same'," explains Rakesh. S. Katarey, associate professor and documentary filmmaker of Amrita School of Journalism. Caged birds are used as motifs to show the state of the lives of the children. So is the music that indicates the happy outside world (when they go on outing to click photographs) and their grim inside world.

Is it a constructed reality? Is it the truth coupled with technology (use of red over tints and music)? A student wanted to know. " It is an attempt to look at a slice of life," is Rakesh's answer.

When asked if the documentary has improved the lives of the children featured in it, there is no simple answer. But Rakesh says "In a creative treatment of reality, it becomes difficult to distance oneself from the subject. Zana has turned an activist now," he adds.

Dr. Paul, an anthropologist from France, rates it as a `heroic' film.

"Zana comes, fights the Indian bureaucracy and goes back. But the problem does not end with these children. The network of social workers and NGOs in West Bengal should be involved to bring about a long-term solution," he says.

K.JESHI

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