{"id":357,"date":"2006-04-20T09:54:40","date_gmt":"2006-04-20T17:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/?p=357"},"modified":"2006-04-20T11:21:13","modified_gmt":"2006-04-20T19:21:13","slug":"deepa-mehtas-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/2006\/04\/20\/deepa-mehtas-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Deepa Mehta’s “Water”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Water\"Last night I had the pleasure of viewing the Los Angeles debut of “Water,” the long awaited film by Indian born acclaimed film maker, Deepa Mehta. It showed at the opening night of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles<\/a> and follows Mehta’s “Earth” (1998), and Fire (1996). <\/p>\n

Water focuses on the horrific oppression of Indian widows in the pre-independence 1930s (an oppression that continues today). Widows ranging in age from about 70 to 7 live in an ashram alongside the Ganges, with shaved heads and white cotton saris as per age-old prescription. To survive, they beg for money, and are forced into prostitution. <\/p>\n

The film has a dramatic political background that says just as much about it’s content as it does about the contemporary state of fundamentalism in India. “Water” was originally planned to be shot on location in India in 2000, before Hindu fundamentalist riots burned down the sets, and the right wing government denied her permits. The political content of Water, and Mehta’s earlier films, has long rubbed the Hindutva movement the wrong way. There is a denial of the notion that India, the land of exotic Eastern mystique, spirituality and Gandhi, is also the home of patriarchal, misogynist tradition. <\/p>\n

The film was eventually finished on location in Sri Lanka, with a different cast and released in 2005 in parts of Asia. It has yet to be released in US theaters. <\/p>\n

\"ChuhiaWater features a 7 year old widow named Chuhia, played by Sarala, who is sent to the widow ashram by her parents. She has no understanding of the fact that she was married, and that after the death of her “husband,” she is now a widow, at 7 years of age. Chuhia’s right to the innocence of childhood is slowly stripped away as the film progresses. <\/p>\n

The film also features the striking Lisa Ray (who appears more white than Indian) in the role of Kalyani. Kalyani is the only widow who is allowed to keep her hair long, for she is the “breadwinner” for the widow community, being forced to sell her body so the others can eat. Hope comes in the form of an idealistic young lawyer who falls in love with her, and is willing to break social taboos to marry her. <\/p>\n

Perhaps the hero of the film is Shakuntala, played by Seema Biswas (Shekhar Kapur’s “Bandit Queen,” 1994). Shakuntala has a deep belief in the scriptures that prescribe her life as a widow. But the arrival of the innocent 7 year old Chuhia, and the hope kindled in Kalyani at the prospect of escaping her fate through remarrying, begins to chip away at Shakuntala’s faith. <\/p>\n

Mahatma Gandhi is also a character in the film through his words and philosophy. We catch a glimpse of him at the end when he makes a profound statement: “I used to think that god was truth, and now understand that truth is god.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I had the pleasure of viewing the Los Angeles debut of “Water,” the long awaited film by Indian born acclaimed film maker, Deepa Mehta. It showed at the opening night of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and follows Mehta’s “Earth” (1998), and Fire (1996). Water focuses on the horrific oppression of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}