Smile Pinki

Approximately thirty five thousand Indian children are born with cleft lips and palates every year. There are about 10 Lakhs Indians with this malady, which can easily be corrected by a simple surgical procedure, which is known to occur in 4 to 12 weeks' fetus' mostly due to nutritional deficiencies and/or genetics, but erroneously blamed on eclipses, and results in isolation and alienation. Five year old Pinki Sonkar and eleven year old Ghutaru Chauhan, both with cleft lips, are amongst thousands who travel, by foot and by auto-rickshaw, to G.S. Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital in Banaras for free treatment with hopes of leading normal lives.