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Q: Because these kids are completely stigmatized, right?

A: Yeah. Completely stigmatized. Nobody wants to empower them, nobody wants to pay attention to them in any way.

Q: Do they talk about their mothers, and what their mothers do?

A: No, they don’t, not at all. I mean, for us to get those interviews, that took a long time and a lot of trust. And they never really said, "My mother’s a prostitute. My mother works on the line." It was always somebody else’s mother.

Q: But it seems like they have an understanding that that’s where they’re headed, too.

A: Yeah. They know everything, but they don’t really think about it.

Q: You weren’t originally planning to be featured in the film yourself, were you?

A: No.

Q: How much convincing did that take?

A: Well, I mean, it was a bit of a pain in the ass — I was a pain in the ass for [co-director] Ross [Kauffman] — because I’m really shy, and at the same time, I let him do most of what he wanted to do: record my phone calls, record me doing the classes and stuff, because I knew I had to be in it somehow. It was a fine balance. We really wanted to minimize the amount that I was in it, because I’m more of a catalyst. But we’ve found that a really powerful part of the film is that people connect with me, and they’re very inspired that one person can actually make a difference, so it is about my story as well. But that wasn’t the intention.

Q: What’s it like for you to see yourself on screen now? Is it uncomfortable for you?

A: I don’t watch the film!

Q: But it seems like you’re probably going to screenings all over the place.

A: I am. But I don’t watch the film anymore. I just watch the end, to connect with it. The very beginning and very end.

Q: Spend an hour in the bathroom at the theater?

A: Yeah! I mean, I’ve seen the film so many times. It’s funny, because sometimes I find myself saying lines in the film, and I’m like, "Oh my God!" It’s like a bad dream. A nightmare. It’s like Groundhog Day.

Q: Does watching the film make you feel removed from the experience of making it and being there? Does it make you feel far away?

A: You know, the first time I watched the film, at the Sundance Film Festival, when we had just completed it, and I’d never seen it on the big screen, and I hadn’t really watched it properly, even though I was in the editing room all the time — I mean, both Ross and I were crying. I think it was the first time that it actually hit me what I had done. So it didn’t make me feel removed. Talking about it all the time, about stuff that really happened in the past for me, on the one hand, it’s such an opportunity to open people’s hearts, and on the other hand it’s kind of frustrating because I want to do the work and not talk about it.

Q: And everybody wants you to talk about it.

A: Right. And you know, it’s such a change for me, because I would go to Calcutta for six months at a time, and nobody knew where I was, and nobody had a clue what I was doing, including Ross.

Q: Is that in your nature, to do something like that?

A: Yeah. I just take off and kind of explore things.

Q: Where does that nomadic drive come from?

A: I think it’s in my genes. I mean, my mother’s from Iraq. I don’t know; I talked about that a little in the New York Times article, this history of exile. Both my parents are Jewish, and I think it’s in my genes, literally, to wander. I mean, I like home as well, and I like, if I’m ever staying home, cooking and having a garden and all that kind of stuff, but wandering is very much part of my nature.

Q: Tell me about when you were first getting to know the kids in the red-light district. Did they warm up to you really quickly?

A: Yeah. They were really desperate for attention.

Q: Was their interest in photography evident right away?

A: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. In the camera, anyway. They saw what I was doing, and they were just fascinated. It was difficult to take pictures because they always wanted to have the camera, so I thought, okay, I’ll get them their own, and see what it’s like from their point of view, or points of view. Plus, they live there, and they’re smaller; they physically have a different point of view as well, so it was very interesting.

Q: Had you ever taught photography before?

A: No. Oh my God, I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I had no idea what I was doing at any class. The night before I’d be like, fuck, now what do I do?

Q: How often did the class meet?

A: Once a week, and then twice a week. Sometimes it was more intense.

Q: How much of what we see in these kids’ photographs do you think is natural talent, and how much is what you taught them?

A: I didn’t teach them how to take photos. I taught them how to use the camera, and then I really taught them to be open. The rest is them. It’s really about opening their minds and changing their minds, because some of them had the notion that this is how to take a photo, and you take a photo of someone standing up, not smiling, and that’s how they do it in India. So I tried to come up with creative ways to break that, and once it broke, that was it — they were just kind of wild with the camera. That’s what’s exciting about photography: there are no rules. All of this "don’t point the camera into the sun" — I don’t pay attention to any rules. It’s really from the heart. I wanted them to see and to feel and to have as little as possible between them and the world.