Prompt 4. Deepa Mehta’s film Water
Deepa Mehta is an Indian Canadian film director and screenwriter who directs films that concern both Indian customs and western cinematic traditions to pursue a feminist ethical agenda. Mehta explores both the contemporary and historical power structures present in Indian societies, to critique inequality created through gender discrimination, class, and religious hypocrisy. Mehta’s trilogy consists of three films that are thematically linked together: “Fire” (1996), “Earth” (1998), and “Water” (2005). All of these films examine the way women are experiencing constant oppression by social institutions, and patriarchy. In other words, the trilogy concerns the lives and struggles of Indian women. Therefore, all the films in the Elemental Trilogy represent significant cultural challenges from the exploitation, subjugation, and subordination of women to the numerous practices of oppression, and patriarchy in the Hindu Indian society. In this paper, I will be examining how did the theme, characterization, and settings articulate the subject of identity, place of belonging and ideas of becoming in Deepa Mehta’s film “Water”(2005).
The film “Water”(2005) established to state many serious statements against the struggles the Hindu Indian society forces its women to go through in the name of religion. Mehta emphasizes patriarchy and the oppression of widows in Hinduism by criticizing many patriarchal attitudes that are classified under forms and structures of oppression against women which disturbed the peace of many Hindu conservatives who considered the film an offensive attack on the Hindu culture and religion. Furthermore, although the film is set in 1938, Mehta’s goal is to draw the viewer’s attention to the situation of Indian widows nowadays, mainly to highlight the reality that patriarchy and the mistreatments of widows are deep-rooted and are an ongoing issue in modern India. In the epilogue of the film, Mehta supports her claim by statistical facts stating that “There are over thirty-four million widows in India according to the 2001 Census. Many continue to live in conditions of social, economic, and cultural deprivation as prescribed 2000 years ago by the Sacred Texts of Manu” (Water 1:47:45). This statement worked as a tool to connect the film “Water” (2005) to contemporary Indian culture.
Moreover, at the beginning of the film, a quote from the Dharmashastras explains the fate of Indian Hindu widows and how they should be treated: “A widow should be long-suffering until death, self-restrained and chaste. A virtuous wife who remains chaste when her husband has died goes to heaven. A woman who is unfaithful to her husband is reborn in the womb of a jackal.” (Water 00:00:28). This quote raises questions of ‘who are we?’ who are women without their husbands? How come the whole existence of a human being depends on another? How come the whole subjecthood and moments of objectification of women rely on a male figure? And do women only belong to other human beings rather than themselves? Mehta emphasizes that the text from the laws of Manus indicates negative attitudes towards widows and women in general as it gives the viewer a religious and philological background to the topic of the film. Also, an often-quoted proverb states, that a woman has three options after her husband deceased: to burn with him on his funeral pyre, to lead the life of an ascetic widow or to marry his younger brother. We can also find this saying in the movie when Shakuntala asks her priest where it is written that widows should be ill-treated. (Water 01:18:30 – 01:19:30).
The film tells us about a young eight-year-old Indian girl called Chuiya, who has just lost her much older husband that she doesn’t even remember marrying. Chuyia is now declared as a widow and has to follow the rituals of widows. Her head is shaven, her bangles are removed, and her clothes are changed to a coarse white cotton sari. Chuyia’s father brings her to an ashram for widows, where she has to live from now on. In the beginning, Chuiya does not understand what is happening to her and she thinks that her stay in the ashram is temporary. After she came to her senses, Chuiya gets scared and demands to go home to her family as she does not see any connection between herself and the rest of the widows living in this ashram. The head of the ashram, Madhaumati, explains to Chuiya the cultural definition of a widow, however, Chuiya talks back and keeps running around the ashram as she doesn’t want to be told what to do by a stranger. Later on, Chuiya befriends one of the widows called Kalyani. Kalyani lives in a little compound above the ashram with her dog Kaloo and is considered the second-youngest widow in the ashram since the arrival of Chuyia. Kalyani is also the only one who’s allowed to keep her hair in the ashram. However, all of Kalyani’s advantages are compensations, because Madhumati forces her into prostitution to provide the ashram with financial support.
One day, Chuiya and Kalyani meet Narayan, a young law graduate who came home to visit his parents. Eventually, Kalyani and Narayan fall in love with each other which led to Narayan asking Kalyani to marry him as he’s a well-educated person who refuses to surrender to traditions and is aware of the fact that widows are allowed to remarry. Kalyani accepts his marriage offer and is soon supported by her fellow widow, Shakuntala. Shakuntala is a deeply religious person who accepted her fate as a widow, however, she understands Kalyani’s wish of re-marrying. Soon enough, Madhumati discovers Kalyani’s wish to re-marry from Chuiya and ended up locking Kalyani in her room and shaving her head as she believes that the remarriage of widows is a sin. Shakuntala then frees Kalyani and helps her meet Narayan, however, when Kalyani and Narayan are on their way to meet his parents, Kalyani realizes that Narayan’s father used to be one of her clients which made her go back to the ashram. As soon as she comes back, Madhumati wants to send her to a client, and it wasn’t until then that Kalyani realized that her fate in this ashram is to only be a prostitute which made her decide to commit suicide.
Kalyani was Madhumati’s source of income. Therefore, Kalyani’s death led Madhumati to use Chuiya as a replacement. Madhumati sends Chuiya to the client’s houses and as soon as Shakunutala hears about it, she went to rescue Chuiya from her fate, but she arrives too late and can. Only receive a traumatized child. Shakunutala the realizes that Chuiya’s state as a child widow is unfair and that she should get another chance to live a better life, therefore, as soon as she hears about Gandhi’s arrival at the train station, she instantly asks the people on Gandhi’s train to take the Chuiya with them to give her a brighter future. When the train starts leaving, she suddenly discovers Narayan among the Gandhi followers and hands Chuiya to him.
The law which allowed the re-marriage of widows had been already passed in 1856 “No marriage contracted between Hindus shall be invalid, and the issue of no such marriage shall be illegitimate by reason of the woman having been previously married or betrothed to another person who was dead at the time of such marriage, any custom and any interpretation of Hindu law to the contrary notwithstanding” (Chakravarti 60). However, what prohibits widows to re-marry is not the law itself but in most cases, it’s the society. As it is shown in Water, even in 1938 the re- marriage of a widow was rejected by society. The first reason was that the widows themselves did not know that re-marriage was allowed. Only after Shakuntala asks a pandit she learns about this law. The second reason is that Madhumati and the other widows believe that Kalyani’s wish to marry again is a disgrace to widowhood and they want to prevent her from re-marrying. And the third is that Narayan’s mother is deeply shocked when she hears about her son’s wish to marry a widow and his father gives him the advice to keep a widow as mistress, while marrying a good woman.
An article called “’Nothing to Go Back To’ – The Fate of the Widows of Vrindavan, India”, written by the journalist Lys Anzia states that “There are over 20,000 widows living in approximately 4,000 ashrams in the holy city nowadays. The conditions of these ashrams vary extremely. There are homes for widows without any restrictions, but also some of them that drastically limit the widow’s personal freedom. It is also said, that in some ashrams sexual assaults, rape and trafficking occurs. The widow’s daily occupation depends also on the restrictions of their ashram. In some cases, they can earn their own money by singing holy chants and praying, they may have their own kitchen and leave the ashram whenever they wish to, but sometimes widows need permission to leave their residing places and are served only specific meals”. Here, the restriction that Madhumati enforced on Kalyani is limiting her freedom by forcing her into prostitution. Therefore, cultural and religious traditions prescribe widows a certain conduct of life, which is enforced by society. The lives of many widows is enforced by the society and is not the result of their own choices. Thus, the treatment from others (from society) demotes most widows into subalternity.
In “Water” (2005), Mehta portrays more or less the worst-case scenario of widows. Chuiya is an eight-year-old widow who’s aware that she was married and sent away to a widow’s ashram by her father. The ashram itself is very poor and mainly elderly widows live there. They are portrayed as vegetating and suffering from their isolation. Kalyani is being taken advantage of and sent off into prostitution to earn money for the ashram. She knows that this is not the right way of living for a widow, but she accepts her fate. Even Shakuntala, who accepted her fate as a widow and tries to find fulfilment in religion, mentions to the priest that she still has worldly desires (Water 00:40:04). Therefore, Deepa Mehta plays an important role in focusing the attention on disadvantaged women in her trilogy.
Throughout the film, Chuiya’s character undergoes many tranformations. For example, Chuiya’s gency decreases with the more time she spends in the ashram. She learns how to behave as a widow, her free thinking and will are reduced. Especially after Kalyanis suicide, when Chuiya is sent to one of her former clients by Madhumati. This experience leaves Chuiya completely traumatized and inert. She has to be rescued by Shakuntala, who is now guiding her. When she is handed over to Narayan on Gandhi’s train in the end, it can be hoped, that Chuiya’s future will be again full of agency and self-determination.
An important turning point in Kalyani’s life is her meeting with Narayan. Her attraction to him makes her to start acting for herself. For example, she secretly meets him during the night. This act is important, because it shows a voluntary decision in contrast to her enforced widowhood and prostitution. Soon, Kalyani starts taking her first steps of insurgency against Madhumati as her pimp. However, after the unfortunate turn of events of finding out that Narayan’s father used to be one of her clients, as soon as she reaches the ashram, Madhumati wants to send her a client. Kalyanim being unable to resume this life of exploitation and suffering, she drowns herself in the river. This last act of suicide has the most effect on her life: it ends her existence as a widow and as a living being. Kalyani’s death is portrayed as a form of resistance against her status and all the social burdens “The suicide demonstrates the transformation of Kalyani’s body into a text that can be read and viewed as an example of social burdens that the subaltern woman is forced to face. Tragically, death becomes one of the ways in which the subaltern can attempt to speak, […]” (7).
Rivers in general symbolize nature, power, fertility, and the passage of time. However, in the film “Water”(2005), the Ganges river symbolizes the mistreatments and injustices of widows that are caused by the Hindu conservatism. Therefore, Mehta included a scene that highlights the power one’s surrounding has on them when Kalyani, a young widow that was forced into prostitution ends her life by drowning herself in the water of the Ganges river. Mehta set Kalyani as an example of many oppressed widows that are tied down by the weight of their surroundings. Traditional beliefs and values tend to play a really important role in tying down women. Some societies deny women their simplest rights and prevent them from living their lives normally because of the expectations that were set for them.
Shakuntala’s character also undergoes a certain type of transformation throughout the film. Since Shakuntala has accepted her fate and does not see any possibility to change it, her acts are only directed to help others, mainly Chuiya and Kalyani. Shakuntala has a very strong personality that even Madhumati cannot rule over her. Therefore, Shakuntala’s agency can be found in her acts. Her acts can be seen when she takes the keys to Kalyani’s room from Madhumati which shows Shakuntala’s actual superiority to Madhumati and her humanity. And also, when she helps Chuiya got sexually and physically abused by one of Kalyani’s former clients. Towards the end of the film, Shakuntala begins to question her faith. That although Shakuntala had accepted her widowhood, she realized through Narayan, Gandhi and her own observations that another way of life for widows could be possible as well “Her decision to defy norms and be the agent of change is based on her realization of the dignity of life and her acts of freeing Kalyani and Chuiya indicate the growing awareness of a woman’s subjectivity and agency” (46).
The use of white and blue in “Water” (2005) is important in the way the film engages with notions of purity. In the context of the film white is both the color of mourning and traditional notions of purity. This makes white an oppressive color since the widows do live a life that feels like death due to religious instruction to remain chaste. This concept of purity is aligned in the film with the misuse of religion to keep the widows subservient since doing otherwise would mean spend money on them.Furthermore, blue is the color of water, which has the power of life and death. In Hindi, water represents feelings and intuition, which are all traditionally associated with femininity. I believe that Mehta found it most appropriate to name the film water since the film is about women and the way women are expected to behave.
Water is a complex and profound film that incorporates many different topics and subjects. Although the film is set in 1938, Mehta’s goal is to draw the viewer’s attention to the situation of Indian widows nowadays, mainly to highlight the reality that patriarchy and the mistreatments of widows are deep rooted and are ongoing issue in modern India. It established to state many serious statements against the struggles the Hindu Indian society forces its women to go through in the name of religion. Mehta emphasizes patriarchy and the oppression of widows in Hinduism by criticizing many patriarchal attitudes that are classified under forms and structures of oppression against women which disturbed the peace of many Hindu conservatives who considered the film as an offensive attack on the Hindu culture and religion.
Noof Almansoori
Water Final Project 