A poignant tale of hope
Water
Cast: Seema Biswas, Lisa Ray, Sarala, John Abraham, Raghuveer Yadav, Kulbhushan Karbanda, Waheeda Rahman
Songs: Sukhwinder Singh and AR Rahman
Background score: Mycheal Danna
Cinematography: Giles Nuttgens
Editor: Colin Monie
Script, direction: Deepa Mehta
Director Deepa Mehta had rightly warned before the screening of her film in Dubai: Water is not a film that you enjoy watching. It is one that moves you. And she bares the soul of her story less than five minutes into the film.
A little girl is woken up by her father in the middle of the night and asked: “Do you remember the man you married?”
She replies: “No.”
“He is dead. You have become a widow.”
And the innocent one simply asks: “For how long, father?”
That is a defining moment in Water. It takes you straight into the sincerity that underscores Mehta’s narration. From there on, nothing is easy for Chuyia, the little girl, or for that matter, the viewer. She is shunted into a home for widows, and there she comes face to face with what could be her future — bleak, bitter old age, where you could (and would) die for a piece of laddoo (an Indian sweet).
Mehta loves symbols and she throws them with relish in Water, not as structured takes but with the creative craft of a gifted story-teller. The film opens on to a lotus pond; later the protagonist of the tale, a young widow, Kalyani, who doesn’t remember when she was married or when her husband died, questions the logic of pristine lotus buds in filthy waters. She herself hasn’t been virtuous to the core, but also bear in mind that she lives in 1938, when widows were nothing more than social outcasts, and they learn to obey not to question.
That is precisely where Mehta’s film acquires a feminine dimension. All three protagonists of the film — Kalyani, Chiyui and Shakuntala, the oldest of the three widows — in their own manner seek to question. Shakuntala is the only one who can stand up to the dictates of the self-proclaimed head of the ashram. Kalyani defies the old woman openly when questioned about her decision to re-marry. And little Chiyui, she bites the woman, stamps on her and kills the matriarch’s parrot, whenever she is hurt.
But doesn’t Mehta tend to romanticise what is essentially a vegetating existence of the widows? Doesn’t she tend to narrow the scope of an issue into the rather limited confines of a love affair and try to get away with it? Doesn’t she simply brush through larger issues — including women and child abuse — and simply hope that the magic you blindly associate with Gandhi and the freedom movement will tie-up all loose ends?
Perhaps yes, and she wouldn’t have overlooked it either. Her film ends on a foot-note: India has some 34 million widows according to the 2001 census and many of them live in conditions that aren’t way different from what Water portrays. Gandhi is dead and gone; the widows still wear the white robes and hope to die by the river Ganges.
Water isn’t a “men” film. The only men are either failed or erring fathers, intoxicated losers or drifting idealists. And then, yes, there is Gandhi. Slowly and steadily, the film flows into him, his idealism, and his search for truth… That indeed makes for a poignant moment, when even the thought of idealistic hope brings a lump in your throat.
Mehta plays with water and rains to build her story — there is an element of water that runs through the narrative at all points. But it is the effortless pattern with which she builds human bonding that makes Water a marvel in film-making.
And doesn’t she bring out the best from her actors! Seema Biswas (as Shakuntala) and Sarala (as Chuyia) highlight the film with exceptional performances. Lisa Ray (as Kalyani) and John Abraham (as Narayan, the idealist who seeks to marry Kalyani) haven’t been entirely stripped of their star charisma but the very fire of romance that should kindle between the characters seems to justify the presence of charismatic stars than just talented actors.
Water tries hard to recreate the ambience of Varanasi in remote Sri Lanka; not surprisingly, it succeeds only partly. The shrines, the waters of Ganges, the very language of nature, the people flavour — they are all missing. And doesn’t Mehta err in bringing in essentially south Indian attires to many passers-by on-screen?
Water would have entered another realm, if its shooting hadn’t been disrupted in India. But there are only a fanatical few to blame for that. Mehta opts then for the second best, and what she can’t get from nature, she adds on to her script. That clearly is out of bounds for the fundamentalists to reach. And they should rather watch the film, first.
— Rajeev Nair
Caption:
The cast of the Water (from left): John Abraham, Seema Biswas, director Deepa Mehta, Sarala and Lisa Ray.
