Film: Water
Director: Deepa Mehta
Writers: Anurag Kashyap (dialogue) Deepa Mehta
First Release Date: 9 March 2007 (India)
Genre: Drama / Romance
Set in 1938, Churiya ( Sarala) is widowed after the man she marries dies shortly after her marriage. Churiya is a child maybe 10 years of age. She is taken to a Widows Home in Benaras by her in-laws and left there. Here she meets other widows who are mostly much older than her except Kalyani (Liza Ray) As per the Shastra of those days, a Hindu woman's options if her husband dies are three: One, she can marry her husband's younger brother, two, commit sati, and three, live a life of celibacy, discipline, and solitude amongst her own kind. Widow re-marriage already a part of Indian life is not popular apparently at this moment of time.
However, love between Kalyani and the young Narayan ( freshly out of Law School and only son of rich zamindar) blossoms but meets its end as Kalyani comes to know that Narayan is the son of the rich man whose house she has been forced to visit as a widow-sex-worker. Kalyani commits suicide.
Gyanvati (Seema Biswas) who is also in the widows Home is the saving grace. When Churiya is fooled and taken to the house of the rich man and has been molested even at that tender age, she grabs the opportunity to attend the Gandhinian meeting and manages to have Narayan take the child with him away from Banaras. In the final shot, as Gyanvati runs to save Churiya from the evil hands of widow sex-work and a life of a widow, we see that at least "one flew over the cuckoos nest".
Shot in Sri Lanka, after the initial hiccups in India, the film is partial in its account of the state of widows in those times.
In his book " Multiple Facets of My Madurai", Manohar Devadoss writes - One of the boys in our close-knit group was a Satagopan, hailing from an orthodox, middle-class Iyengar Brahmin family. His parents were so old fashioned that they solemnized the wedding of his sister, Jeyamma even before she completed her schooling. Unfortunately her husband was drowned soon after in a railway accident caused by a swollen river. She was a teenager and was expected to become a widow. Back then in Tamil Nadu, Brahmin widows belonging to traditional families were made to suffer the hardest of punishments. On the contrary, her parents moved away from these cruel customs. They shifted to another town and put her through college. She passed her Bachalors Degree examinations, winning the first rank in the State. They returned to Madurai to enable her to pursue her masters degree. ..They allowed Jeyamma to roam around with boys from our group provided her brother accompanied her. ..Jeyamma went on to pursue her higher studies, remarried and recently retired as professor in California University at Davis"
This is an account on a subject in the same period. And in a more conservative society than the Bengali one, which is depicted in the film.
The film has been made for the western audience, with limited information on the society, culture of India. It serves as another slap in the face by a non-resident Indian, anxious to make a mark as a filmmaker of Indian origin, living in Canada. Sensational in content, it leaves the informed audience with a taste of unripe alphanso mango in the mouth.However, if one does not have much knowledge about India, in its past and present, it can go off as a film with good cinematography.
Deepa Mehta ends the film quoting the 1991 census of the number of widows in India.
"According to the 1991 Census there are 33 million widows all over India -- 8 per cent of the total female population and 50 per cent of the female population over the age of 50. In terms of prevalence of widowhood, India ranks among the highest in the world. The incidence of widowhood rises sharply with age: 64 per cent among women aged 60 and above, and 80 per cent among women aged 70. An Indian woman who survives to old age is therefore almost certain to become a widow."(
http://www.infochangeindia.org/fetaures8.jsp
)
Yet, there are other pictures which flash before my eyes of what I see in real life. Our widows may be suffering in many parts of India, but in many others, they are not living a life of repression. You will see them on the streets, at the Malls; they are having a good time, they do not have to live on a diet of non-vegetarian, endless prayers, fasts and shame and guilt any more. Nor do they have to shave their heads if they do not wish to do so. They are re-marrying or even finding love again. They visit McDonalds, have their own saving Accounts, they go on their own holidays and even have the financial power to stand on their own. This, of course does not mean that widows in India are not suffering, still. But for that we need to blame their conservative families and their backward children.
Just one more thing: What is with Deepa Mehta and the train? In Fire, her protagonists are standing at the station waiting for the train to get away from their situation. Similarly, here in Water, again there is the Railway station at the end of the film. And again, her protagonist is there but this time, at least Churiya boards the train and leaves with Narayan. So is it reflective of Deepa Mehtas own life Some Freudian slip maybe? If the train is life itself, then in Fire she was waiting for the train, and in Water, she has missed it again. Thankfully, she ensures that little Deepa does not.
The film runs because of Seema Biswas. Not the story or the actors. Liza Ray - what a wash out! John Abraham Huh! Nothing much! Just another emotionless hunk! Waheeda Rehman, well! Sarala, good and natural.
No wonder in India, it has failed.
Also authored by me: Vioce
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Hey jules.. thats one hell of a review.. loved every word! :)
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Julia,
Not seen ‘Water’ but it appears that Deepa Mehta tried to sensationalise the tormented lives of young widows of that era with foreign viewership firmly within her frame… But ending the film quoting the 1991 census will unfairly give a wrong impression about the present scenario in our country…
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