Movies like Water pose an interesting challenge for the Christian viewer. Set in the 1930s, the film is a strong critique of the treatment of widows within traditional Hinduism, and Christians who believe in the God-given dignity of all human beings would agree that Indian society needed reformation on this point (and perhaps, in some quarters, it still does). Indeed, as far back as the 18th century, missionaries like William Carey played a significant part in putting a stop to practises like suttee, whereby widows were burned to death on their husbands’ funeral pyres. But in this day and age, religions are not supposed to impose their beliefs on other cultures, so this film’s social critique is rooted in basically secular principles—principles which, broadly applied, could undermine religious belief in general.
Fortunately, writer-director Deepa Mehta keeps us close enough to the experiences of the widows themselves that we can focus on seeing the injustice for what it is, without necessarily subscribing to her own belief system. The film centers on an eight-year-old girl named Chuyia (played by the one-named Sarala), who is first seen riding in a cart with her family and a sick man who, we later learn, is her husband—presumably through an arranged marriage that had not yet been consummated. Soon afterwards, Chuyia’s father tells her that her husband is dead. “My child, do you remember getting married?” asks the father. “No,” says Chuyia. But it makes no difference—a widow is a widow, and Chuyia is sent to an ashram, or “widow house,” where she will spend the rest of her life in poverty.
There, Chuyia finds a range of women of various ages. She quickly runs afoul of Madhumati (Manorama), the older, overweight woman who runs the place, and whose domineering attitude prompts Chuyia to dismiss her as “Fatty.” But she also makes a few friends, from the sensitive Shakuntala (Seema Biswas), who grapples most explicitly with the religious demands placed on her and her fellow widows, to the elderly, senile Patiraji, or “Auntie” (Vidula Javalgekar), who often talks of how she was married at the age of seven, chiefly because she remembers being treated to an abundance of her favorite sweets.
Ironically, the enforced chastity puts these cloistered widows into situations where some of them must prostitute themselves in order to survive. One of Chuyia’s closest friends, Kalyani (Lisa Ray), is sometimes sent across the Ganges River to the Brahmin, or higher-caste, men who live there and pay for her services; because of this, she is allowed to keep her hair, but she must live apart from the other widows. These trips are arranged by a transvestite eunuch named Gulabi (Raghuvir Yadav), who regularly comes by Madhumati’s window to bring her news of the world outside, including strange reports about a man named Gandhi who says untouchables are children of God, and similar things.
The story takes a romantic turn when Kalyani crosses paths with Narayana (John Abraham), a handsome Brahmin legal student who has joined Gandhi’s movement and lives with his parents across the river. Narayana insists that he and Kalyani can have a life together, because “all the old traditions are dying out.” But she is not so sure; and his parents, as modernized as their lifestyle may be, don’t exactly see things the way he does.
It is said that the three subjects you should never bring up in polite conversation are sex, politics, and religion. Water is the third film in Mehta’s “elemental trilogy,” a series of films that tackles precisely these subjects, in this order, within an Indian context. Fire, about a lesbian relationship, concerned sexuality; Earth, set during the violent partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, concerned nationalist politics. Water concerns religion, and while some of us might be used to thinking of water, religiously, as a symbol of cleanliness or purification (a la baptism), it is given a more subversive metaphorical purpose here.
One of the very first images we see is of a lotus surrounded by stagnant water, which taps into a common Hindu and Buddhist motif regarding the potential for purity and beauty despite an impure environment. This theme is spelled out later, when Kalyani says she puts up with her low station in life because, according to the Lord Krishna, a person must “learn to live like a lotus, untouched by the filthy water it is in.” In addition, the Ganges, though a sacred river to Hindus, symbolizes in this film the division between the castes, as well as the exploitation of one group by another; and, ultimately, it is linked with despair and death.
To be sure, there are positive references to “God” here and there, but they are expressed in essentially secular or anti-religious ways. Near the end of the film, Gandhi himself tells his followers, “For a long time I thought that God is truth. But today I know that truth is God.” This is not unlike the tendency among certain people to say that, if God is love, then love is God. The problem with this approach is that it makes God our follower, not our leader; we put ourselves in a position where we must define truth and love on our own, without any reference to God, and we turn to him only to have our definitions rubber-stamped.
The film presents a contest between faith and conscience, and, just like all those Hollywood films about people who learn to follow their hearts, it plays into the common belief that one’s conscience is never wrong. In this case, though, it’s easy to see why the consciences of certain characters are right and the faith in question is wrong, even if you don’t come at the problem from the same perspective of the director. Full of lush, fluid cinematography and evocative music, from Mychael Danna’s score to the songs by A. R. Rahman, Water is an important look at a social injustice, and Mehta’s most accomplished film yet.
Talk About It
Discussion starters- Do you think this film critiques Hinduism from within the religion, or from outside it? Note how, after one widow dies, someone says, “God willing, she’ll be reborn as a man.” Note also how one character says, “The holy texts say all this is an illusion,” and another responds that their friend’s death “was no illusion.” Is it easier to agree with this film’s critique if you come from an entirely different religious framework?
- If you were to critique the Hindu practices depicted in this film, would you do so as an outsider, or would you try to find a way to critique them from within Hinduism? Why or why not? Should non-Christians critique Christianity? If so, how? If not, why not?
- Which characters sincerely follow Hindu beliefs, and which do not? How do people justify their deviation from traditional Hindu belief? Note how Gandhi, a sympathetic character, says he used to believe God is truth, but now he believes truth is God. And note how Madhumati, an unsympathetic character, justifies sending supposedly chaste widows into prostitution by saying, “How we survive, no one can question-not even God!” Do either of these characters put God first? What, if anything, distinguishes their attitudes?
- Shakuntala asks, “What if your conscience conflicts with your faith?” Has your conscience ever conflicted with your faith? How did you resolve the conflict? Is the conscience ever wrong? Is the faith always right? How have Christians wrestled with conscience-versus-faith issues in the past (e.g., Martin Luther’s “Here I stand” speech)? What does the Bible say about the conscience (e.g. Job 27:6, Romans 2:15, 1 Corinthians 8:7, Titus 1:15)?
The Family Corner
For parents to considerWater is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexual situations, all of which is kept off-screen (a couple of widows, including a child, are forced to prostitute themselves; their pimp is a transvestite eunuch), and for brief drug use. One character commits suicide.
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