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These blogs are a way to share my thoughts and insights with you. Feel free to comment and share.

Thankful for Thanksgiving

13/10/2014

6 Comments

 

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Besides eating too much on this Thanksgiving weekend, I watched DVDs from the library. Using my ten-minute rule, (if after ten minutes, I don’t like the movie, I turn it off to spare me from a two-hour movie I will surely regret wasting my time watching, and beside that it’s free), I passed on three of the six movies.

The best of the movies that made the cut was Born into Brothels, directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski, which won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

It features interviews of eight boys and girls, between 10-14 years old, who are the children of prostitutes from the Sonagachi red light district in Calcutta.  It seems only a question of time before they too are forced into prostitution.

The documentary highlights the bleakness, the misery, and the unbearable suffering these children face. This is contrasted with flashes of hopefulness as we hear the children laugh and tell stories. One can’t help but be moved by the strength and resilience of these children, and the exceptional manner in which the filmmakers interact with their subjects.

The transformative power of learning
Zana Briksi lived off and on for years in this brothel while researching and filming the movie, getting close to the parents. And, over time, she develops close relationships with the children through photography. She gives them cameras and teaches them how to shoot and develop their own pictures. The film showcases still photos taken by the eight children.

Ultimately, Kaufman and Briski arrange for these children to go to high-quality boarding schools, so they can have an opportunity to avoid lives in brothels.  The two directors obtain additional funding for the children’s schooling through sales of prints of their pictures. 

I was moved by how:
  • Eager these children were to learn, and how quickly they developed their photography skills
  • Unbearably accepting the children were of their destiny – lives in brothels (before the moviemakers came along) 
  • Transformative and powerful education was in raising the children’s confidence, self-esteem and hope
  • Determination and painstaking efforts of a few people not only saved these children from lives of misery, but gave them opportunities to pursue productive lives 

Meanwhile, back at the Thanksgiving dinner table

While Thanksgiving was traditionally the holiday when we gave thanks for the harvest, it has become a time when we pause to be thankful for our many blessings.  The last farmers in my family were my maternal grandparents!  

So, for me, Thanksgiving is a time to strengthen what works well, to focus on the positive, and to appreciate the ease of our lives compared to those, in dark corners of the world, whose suffering is beyond imagination.  Sonagachi is one of those corners.  And it is always worth remembering that out of the darkness light can emerge, and change for the better can take hold.

Saying Thanks,
Coach Minda

6 Comments
Richard Childs
13/10/2014 03:19:34 am

Uplifting, thank you for affecting the quality of my day enabling me to shift my attitude.

Happy Thanksgiving Minda

Reply
Minda
14/10/2014 02:57:42 am

Thank you Richard for your feel good response!

Reply
Felicity Fanjoy
13/10/2014 04:00:07 am

Had heard only good things about this film. Must see it, too!
For me, thanksgiving happens every day, but Thanksgiving is a wonderful excuse to eat a delicious turkey dinner with family and friends!

Reply
Minda
14/10/2014 02:58:52 am

I don't why I waited so long to see the film! You are right, we need to give thanks and be grateful daily. I hope you enjoyed turkey dinner.

Reply
Virginia
13/10/2014 10:48:48 am

Thanks for the uplifting message, what a wonderful way to end Thanksgiving weekend... with thanksgiving!

I saw that same very good film a few years ago. If my memory serves me well, not all of the children chose to take the opportunity to go to, or stay in, the boarding school. That was what stayed with me. The fact that sometimes we choose to stay with what is familiar rather than grasp an opportunity. Or perhaps it is sometimes just too difficult to leave loved ones behind?

Thanks again

Reply
Minda
14/10/2014 03:03:45 am

I did gloss over some of the details, tis true.
Some of the parents would not allow their children to go and one of the children came home. The good news is that those who didn't go to the boarding school, did at least complete high school and/or went to the boarding school at some point. And the one girl who was most vulnerable to being on "the line", was spared. You are right about how these choices present themselves differently to all the players - parents and children and how in our lives we make decisions that probably don't make a lot of sense to others. Thanks Virginia!

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