Water
Cast John Abraham, Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas, Sarala, Music: Mychael Danna, Direction: Deepa Mehta



This movie, when Deepa Mehta decided to film it in Banaras, created a lot of controversy. The Hindu fundamentalists ransacked the sets, burnt or broke expensive equipment and in turn, successfully stalled the shooting. Later Mehta announced that the project is dropped and thereafter everybody went home.

Meanwhile, she quietly recasted and began filming it in Sri Lanka. I've read the news about John Abraham and Lisa Ray featuring and considering the cast and the location, doubted the quality of the output. I even thought Mehta didn't have a credible story and wanted to make Water just to cash in on the controversy. Perhaps due to the under-expectations or my wife's charged involvement, the movie indeed turned out good.

First off, it has a very credible story. It happens around late 30s when the freedom movement began heating up. The child marriage is quite prevalent. So are the child widows. Often, the grown up men are married to young children. The widows, both child and adult, are sent to widow homes in Banaras to lead an ascetic life. Not before their heads are shaved, jewels are snatched and colourful sarees are changed to white cotton saree.

The story starts with a child Chuyia who just turned widow and is being put to this torture and sent to home. The home is managed by an elderly malicious lady, a widow again and she runs it with an iron will. Here, we get to meet all kinds of souls. One who has converted her widow life to almost a masochistic sainthood. One who has not forgotten the various sweets she ate during her wedding and still longs for it because as widow, she is forbidden from eating fried foods and sweets. This character really touched my heart because unlike others where the trauma is quite evident, her quiet yet constant brooding for ladoos and rasgullas though comical, was eerily disturbing.

And well, there is this girl Kalyani who is in her early 20s, another victim of the child marriage and curiously made to retain her lustrous hair because, well, I shall not reveal the story any further here.

The story, however, revolves around these characters with freedom struggle as the backdrop and John Abraham featuring as a student attracted by Gandhian idealogies. A surprisingly good choice because he has fit into the 30s youth very comfortably and has delivered his most subtle and career best performance.

Water mainly aims to show you how widows were forced to abject poverty, frugal living, self-denial and how Hinduism, especially the Manu Dharma written perhaps some 3000 years back was used to define their mean way of living. But at another layer, it goes beyond widows and raises certain serious questions on feminism, how freedom struggle was attributed as a direct enemy of orthodoxy, and the role of brahminism. Also, contrary to the gloomy backdrop, the movie portrays a very fine and fragile love story in a surprisingly romantic fashion.

And finally, Gandhi too features briefly and Water poignantly shows how he has indeed touched every single life in his time.

The camera (Giles Nuttgens) moves quite calmly over the adopted banks of Ganges and the home, never seems to be in a hurry and not being dominant. The characters are given enough time to portray themselves and the frames appears to liesurely moves around them. For the entire rhythimc flow of the movie, the climax is quite racy
indeed. But I certainly didn't complain because despite everything, it portrayed motivation and hope.

Water is a personal success for Deepa Mehta because the cynical critics like me have been emphatically silenced and I must happily admit that Water is a very powerful film. Without controversy, this would have been commercially quite successful. Nevertheless, it is certainly not Mehta's loss. I sincerely hope Mr. Bal Thackerey, now that he has a lot of free time, gets to watch this and hang his head in shame.

One bad news

Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi: Minister for Information & Broadcasting

Couple of weeks back, the Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi decided to view The Da Vinci Code along with a few Christian representatives to decide whether it's fit for Indian public's consumption. Of all, the Censor Board was aghast at this move and the board chairman bitterly remarked it as a 'bad' precedence. Later, with the nod from the minister, the board cleared it with an 'A' certificate and requested an obligatory disclaimer, which Sony said is already present in the movie.

A few of my friends, after this controversy, wondered why should Munshi decide what's good for viewing by the public. I'm not asking this question because knowingly or not, the current government is a democratically elected one and those at the helm are the 'representatives' of the people. This means that the we, the people, have 'decided' that the these gentlemen are going to run our nation's affairs. So there's no point in cribbing about it.

But the contentious point is, there weren't much protests for The Da Vinci Code. Barring a few placards waving and token gatherings, this movie hasn't attracted much attention from the Christian community. Worse, there isn't even a single PIL. But the minister took matters in his hands even before it was warranted. The only place there ever a case filed was in South Korea, where the court overruled it stating, 'those who find the movie offensive can stay away from the theatres and also advise their friends and relatives not to watch it'. The movie is running in Vatican, the very foundation the book attacks.

So why make a fuss in India? I can think of two aspects. The first one is quite far-fetched so I shan't dwell. Second is our government's never satiating desire to prove their secular credentials. Secular, in Indian dictionaries, means appeasing the minorities. Ever since the fall of NDA, the Congress has been bending over backwards to keep the minorities happy. This move by the I&B minister to personally watch the movie could be a message to all the christians that 'don't worry folks. Your welfare is our prime concern'. To me, this theory seems relevant.

Whatever may be the cause, this move has set a very bad precedent. Tomorrow, any organisation can request the government to watch some movie they think may offend them. It is difficult to guess where this will all lead to.

Consequently, the Tamil Nadu government has suspended the screening in the state, promptly followed by Andhra Pradesh. I don't think Christians are much troubled that their religion is in danger because Tom Hands is trying to unleash a conspiracy. But apparently, these governments seem to think so.

Sadly, these moves ended up giving this B-grade conspiracy-novel a classic status. I'm not sure whether these state-based suspension is legally valid given that the Censor has already cleared it. But if they were to ever lift the suspension due to a court order or otherwise, The Da Vinci Code is going to draw huge crowds.

That is certainly not what the Christians would have asked for.

One Good News

LTTE supremo Prabhakaran

As I'm writing this, the European Union has just banned LTTE and is currently busy freezing their assets and bank accounts. The plan to declare LTTE as a terrorist organisation has been brewing for some time among the EU nations and I've read the news pieces about it a couple of months back. Since then I have been hoping for this to happen. I'm glad they did this.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is unarguably the longest surviving and the deadliest terrorist movement the histroy has witnessed. They have a lot of firsts to their credit. Or shall I say discredit. The tigers have successfully executed the first suicide killing in the modern history, inducted children into terrorism, and started women's wing.

When they began their operations, they were not the only Tamil liberation group. There were others such as TELO, EPRLF, etc. But the tigers systematically and brutally destroyed and disintegrated every one of them in a highly sinister way. Their plan was simple though. Just kill their leaders. And hence, other Tamil leaders such as Padmanabha, Siri Sabha Ratnam, Amirthalingam and a host of others were brutally murdered. In the end, LTTE remained a lone Tamil movement and therefore unanimously declared themselves as the undisputable representatives of Srilankan Tamils.

Due to language and cultural sentiments, Tamils in India traditionally supported the cause of tigers and in turn pushed India to help them. As a result, the Indian army trained LTTE cadres and even supplied them arms. The defining moment came when LTTE, agitated with India's attempt to force them to accept democratic solutions, decided to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. The murder sent shock waves across India's political circles and the enraged government instantly banned the organisation. For the majority of Tamils, the sympathy was lost forever.

Child soldiers of LTTE

To me, especially the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi is the single most defining moment in India. This one act of terror literally tumbled the Indian political harmony upside down and we haven't recovered since then. And as an enraged Indian, I'm not going to forgive tigers ever.

Following India, US declared them as dangerous terrorist outfit and banned them. Despite drying up the Indian support pipeline, the tigers have been thriving primarily due to their support base in Europe. LTTE are headquartered in London and their Paris office too is quite active in mobilising funds. Every time their arms and funds dry up, the tigers call for ceasefire and move to the negotation table. As the talks progress, they replenish their arms and money, and begin striking again. Being a democracy, the Sri Lankan government cannot reject the ceasefire claims and be seen in a bad light. Meanwhile, the people of Jaffna were living in a hell city paying taxes to Srilankan government as well as the tigers and getting troubled by both. All for living in a city whose infrastructure might make Ethiopia look like Manhattan. LTTE was making everybody's life miserable.

The ban will make a lot of difference to the tigers approach to mobilising arms and funds. Unlike Islamic terrorism, tigers do not have oil money. Practically most of their money comes from Europe, Australia and Canada. With Europe drying up, and if Australia and Canada follow suit, the tigers will be severely crippled.

That will be the day of jubilation for Tamils at both sides of the Indian occean.