Mira Nair's first feature was an acclaimed drama depicting the desperate lives of homeless children in one of India's poorest cities. Krishna is a 10-year-old country boy forced to live on his own in the streets of Bombay after his family tosses him out. While he hopes to earn 500 rupees for his mother and return home, the all-consuming job of staying alive quickly makes that dream an unreality. He develops the street-smarts needed to survive in the seedy world of prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves, and other homeless children, but the harrowing experience takes an extremely heavy emotional toll on him. Although Krishna keeps trying to raise the money to return home, it is, in the end, a hopeless task.
