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Mukherjee Deepamehtasfilm 2008
Mukherjee Deepamehtasfilm 2008
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to Revue Canadienne d'Études cinématographiques / Canadian Journal of Film Studies
Even if for
Oscar Water
Best(Canada, 2005, Deepa
Foreign Language Mehta)constitutes
Film, which had not peer
beenapprobation
nominated of for an
its cinematic distinction, it would have been marked as a singular achievement
for the director's determination to complete the film. As is well known, even in
ordinary filmmaking circumstances, it is a challenge for individual film makers
to find encouraging producers, capable technicians and support staff who would
help shape their vision. More extraordinarily, "Project Water" suffered a serious
set-back when the shooting was forcibly stopped at Varanasi by mobs protesting
what was seen as the film's disparagement of Indian culture.1 The fact that
Mehta was able to complete the film in light of such circumstances bears out her
intrepid nature and tenacious love for her craft as well as the producer David
Hamilton's faith in her ability.
This paper studies Mehta's film Water as a complex social document that in
a creative and dialectical way confronts and uncovers a malaise that prevails in
Hindu society. The film grapples with the evil custom of sending Hindu widows
away to pilgrimage centres where, forgotten by the acquisitive world, they live
36 TUTUN MUKHERJEE
to exist but is sexually a non-being. The worst of all is the lifelong shame a widow
must bear of being considered inauspicious and hence banned from attending cel
ebrations. A widow is feared and imagined as a bad omen. Of the eight incarna
tions of the Devi in Hindu mythology, the most feared is "Dhumavati" in the form
of a widow accompanied by the raven as her vehicle.
That there is an economic angle to the way widows are treated must not be
overlooked. Often social norms restrict a widow's rights to residence, property,
and employment, and impose a gendered division of labour as well as seclusion.
Without any source of income, she is reduced to helpless dependency and
penury. There is hardly a family in India that does not have a widow-a grand
mother, mother or an aunt-as an omnipresent figure. When supported and cared
for, she is the matriarch who rules the household with love and wisdom. But
increasingly, with the dismantling of the joint family system, she is left to fend
for herself and as Martha Alter Chen puts it, "symbolizes the imminent collapse
of the social order."3 According to the Government of India's 1991 Census, there
are more than 33 million widows in India of whom some thirty thousand are
below fifteen years of age. According to Chen, the reasons for the high propor
tion of widows are because "marriage in India is near universal; husbands are
five years older on average than wives; male mortality rates are still very high;
women begin to outlive men after their reproductive years; and, most impor
tantly, widow remarriage is infrequent."4 Until recently, two linked social prac
tices-gauri daan or child marriage to avoid social ostracism if a daughter
remains unmarried after attaining puberty and kuliri pratha that allows polygamy
among the brahmins-were the major causes for widowhood since very young
girls were wed to much older men and men with multiple wives. To avoid the
problems of both economic and familial nurturing of the widows, the convenient
way devised by communities was, and still is, to send them away to pilgrimage
centres like Mathura-Vrindavan and Kashi/Varanasi ostensibly to let them pass
the remainder of their life in devotion and worship. These pilgrimage centres, as
well as others, teem with widows sent away by their families invariably without
financial support to live in pitiful conditions. Their status is one of being "lifted
from the pyre but left in the cremation ground."5
38 TUTUN MUKHERJEE
social order of the family and the community. Young and beautiful widows free
of male control circulate as objects of desire and illicit passion. Therefore they
must be and eventually are removed by some narrative connivance. According to
Meenakshi Mukherjee, since marriages were arranged and the brides were some
times very young, the only possibility of romance of an adult male could be with
a courtesan, prostitute or a widow.8 Thus, novels like Vishabriksha (1873),
Krishnakanter Will (1878), Palli Samaj (1916), Charitraheen (1931), Chokher Bali
(1903), Yamuna Paryatan (1857), Saraswatichandra (1887) to mention a few
memorable representations of widows by the pioneer novelists mentioned above,
address widowhood and its difficulties by pivoting the plot on it but do not break
social conventions nor introduce liberal thinking that would challenge prevailing
social attitudes towards widows. In fact, their treatment confirms society's sub
liminal fear of young widows as sexually disruptive agents.
The development of analytical awareness of social-cultural evils takes time.
Effecting radical changes takes even longer. The movement for the emancipation of
women began gradually to take bigger and more successful strides in the twentieth
century and reflected the positive change and aggressive stance vis-à-vis regressive
customs in various kinds of writing.9 Stories were written with widows as protago
nists who were admired and respected for their conduct and ethics. With films
becoming widely popular by mid-century, another medium became available as an
expressive mode to explore and represent social issues. While the usual social and
family dramas had widows as ubiquitous characters, a few memorable films
inspired by equally remarkable novels confronted the subject more directly and
courageously. These films have received both audience appreciation and critical
acclaim for their sensitive treatment of the conditions of widowhood. While the sev
eral film versions of classic novels like Vishabriksha, Krishnakanter Will,
Charitraheen, Palli Samaj, Chokher Bali, Saraswatichandra present the cautious atti
tude of the earlier generations, films in post-independence India like Vamshavriksha
(1972, Girish Karnad and B.V. Karanth), Ghatashraddha (1977, Girish Kasaravalli),
Ek Chadar Maili Si (1986, Sukhwant Dada), Rudali (1993, Kalpana Lajmi), and
Adajya (1997, Santwana Bardoloi) explore the various aspects of widowhood and
their social implications with realistic, nuanced and sensitive maturity.
40 TUTUN MUKHERJEE
42 TimlN MUKHERJEE
The bank of the Ganga in the film narrative recalls the bank of the Jamuna
where, under a massy tree, the flute playing Narayan awaits Kalyani in a strong
reminder of the Krishna-Radha rendezvous. The romance of Radha and Krishna
and,
Narayan wants to marry Kalyani and does not hesitate to tell his mother
(Waheeda Rahman) that she is a widow. As expected, his mother is shocked and
cries "What will the people say!" But he is convinced that his father is broad
minded enough to accept his decision and persuade his mother to consent.
Shakuntala believes that Sadananda who reads the sacred texts to them by the
riverside is a wise and sympathetic person. She learns from him that dharma
allows widows to remarry and in fact a Government Act permits them to do so.
44 TUTUN MUKHERJEE
She wonders why such socially relevant information is suppressed and decides
to help Kalyani find a new future. That she is trusted is demonstrated by Kalyani
asking her unhesitatingly to read Narayan's missive to her. Shakuntala is neither
judgmental nor punitive. But when Madhumati learns of Kalyani's decision from
Chuiya, she cuts off Kalyani's hair and locks her in a room. The gesture is a sym
bolic one that recalls the social control of a widow's sexuality. Shakuntala opens
Kalyani's door and importunes her to fearlessly follow her destiny. Kalyani's
trauma is expressed in her sobs as she rushes into Narayan's arms. Narayan
takes Kalyani across the river but as they near the house, Kalyani asks the name
of his father and then demands that the boat be turned back. She tells him that
he should ask his father the reason for her action. Back at the bidhva-ashram,
Madhumati tells her to get ready to go with Gulabi again. But like a bird that has
stepped outside the cage, Kalyani is no longer willing to enter the exploitative
cage and pawn herself. Despairing of ever finding happiness or a life of
respectability, she very deliberately chooses the river as her haven. Shakuntala,
Chuiya and Narayan sit by the river and grieve over Kalyani's death. Narayan is
shocked when his father tells him that he need not marry a widow but could
keep her as a mistress as he himself has been doing. Thus the father he has idol
ized exposes his feet of clay. Disgusted by the debauchery, Narayan leaves home
and boards the crowded train that Gandhi is traveling in, thus exchanging one
father-figure for another. (Gandhi was fondly called "Bapu" or "father" by his
followers which translated into 'Father of the Nation' after Independence.)
Water does not allow the happy closure of a widow's marriage but like the
early novels on the subject, probes the reasons for Kalyani's action. It succeeds
in making apparent the helplessness of a woman trapped within the social grid
when she has neither the means nor the opportunities of standing by herself in
defiance of society. Without the protection of a male, she is merely an object for
exploitation, whether inside or outside a home or a bidhva-ashram, by men and
colluding women. Women's utter helplessness becomes emphasized when
Shakuntala, after cradling the traumatized Chuiya through the night, runs to the
46 TUTUN MUKHERJEE
NOTES
1. See Edwina Mason, "The Water Controversy and the Politics of Hindu Nationalism," in
Hindu Nationalism and Governance, John McGuire and Ian Copland, eds. (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2007).
2. For more details see Uma Chakravarti and Preeti Gill, eds., Shadow Lives: Writings on
Widowhood (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2001).
3. Martha Alter Chen, ed., Widows in India: Social Neglect and Public Action (New Delhi:
Sage Publications, 1998), 1.
4. Martha Alter Chen, Perpetual Mourning: Widowhood in Rural India (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2001), 3.
5. T.N. Kitchlu, Widows in India (New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1993), viii.
6. See for example Kitchlu, Chen.
7. For documents and personal narratives on widow remarriage, see Chakravarti and Gill, 54-250.
8. Meenakshi Mukherjee, Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1985), 70.
9. See Chakrabarti and Gill, 251-284.
10. Annette Kuhn, Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993 [1982]), 14.
11. Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997), 6.
12. Ibid., 6.
13. Ibid., 6.
14. Eduardo Cadava, Words of Light: Thesis on the Photography of History (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1998), 42-44.
15. Helga Geyer-Ryan, Paul Koopman and Klass Yntema, Benjamin Studies I (Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 2002), 9.
16. Buck-Morss, 7.
17. Prem Choudhury in Chen 1998, 95.
18. Kuhn, 81.