'Mighty Afrin' is a story shared by millions of underprivileged children

Walking through the busy, crowded streets of Dhaka, we often come across a scene that has now become a bit too normalized in our collective psyche – men, women and children lying on the street, picking up trash, begging and doing what they can to survive in the concrete jungles of the metropolis. 

We usually walk away without giving them a second thought, without bothering to wonder how they got here, how their lives came to be in this state or what their stories might be. 'Mighty Afrin' tells one such story – a story shared by millions of children throughout the capital.

'Mighty Afrin: In the Time of Floods' is a hybrid documentary directed by Greek director Angelos Rallis, shot over a span of five years following the life of Afrin, one of the many people of Bangladesh who lost their homes to river erosion and rising water levels.

Afrin, a 12-year-old girl, lived with her relatives on one of the mud islands of the Brahmaputra River after her mother died and her father abandoned both her daughter and village to go live in the capital city. 

The film begins with a rather hopeless scene where a young Afrin is shown trying to barricade the mud with branches amidst heavy downpours and a severe flood. As the situation worsens and the village residents abandon their submerged homes, Rallis follows Afrin's journey to Dhaka by boat and then by train.

Upon reaching the overpopulated metropolis, Afrin joined a group of children much younger than her who were Tokais or trash collectors, surviving on handfuls of petty cash earned by selling bits and scraps of trash scavenged from the streets. 

Rallis's depiction of Afrin and her little group's escapades through the trash-filled city shows us a world that the people of the middle class and above seldom see. 

Although some of the scenes of Afrin and the kids running through streets lined with burning trash, climbing endless heaps of garbage or lying in trash fields at the bottom of tall buildings and looking at the sky could easily be confused for a scene from a dystopian sci-fi, this is a reality of many children who spend their lives in the wastelands created as a byproduct of our comfortable lives. 

Aside from depicting the struggle of the street kids of Dhaka through Afrin's perspective, Angelos Rallis shows us the emotional side of an immigrant's violent transition from the quiet peace of rural life to the polluted, noise-filled, traffic-clogged streets of Dhaka. 

Rallis uses the hybrid nature of the documentary to add in some scripted flashbacks. Just as Afrin sits on a van in a traffic jam, covering her ears with her hands due to the relentless noise of vehicles, Rallis pulls us into a flashback of Afrin rowing a raft through the Brahmaputra river, the serene silence broken periodically by the splash of the oars in the water and the chirping of birds. 

While some may say that the scripted flashbacks ruin the purity of the documentary, they certainly help us understand the intensity of Afrin's struggle to cope in the city.

While we may take relief in knowing that Afrin had Rallis and his camera watching over her throughout her struggles and is now off the streets, helping other children get off the streets as well, it is important to remember that Afrin's story is only one of the millions of similar stories shared by countless children across Dhaka. 

There are several messages to receive from 'Mighty Afrin: In The Time of Floods.' The film shows us that climate change isn't just a hot topic by taking us on a journey through the lives of people directly affected by it. It gives us a new perspective on poverty and the lives of the people around us. It tells us the struggle of immigrants, a lot of whom were forced to leave the comfort of their peaceful homes to come to a city that has no place for them other than the dumps.

The film's ultimate message is to be kinder to the neglected people around us and to remember that they are people just as we are people, with lives to live, struggles to overcome and stories to tell.

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