A little girl sits in the prow of a boat ferrying a sick middle-aged man to a doctor in a small Indian city. Once ashore, the man dies, leaving the girl, Chuyia (Sarala), as his 8-year-old widow. Her parents, with
much pain, swiftly deposit her in an ashram for widows, never to see her again. The distraught child’s head is shaved, and she is clad in the white cotton sari that is to be her lifelong uniform.
This is the jolting beginning of “Water,” Deepa Mehta’s superb conclusion to her “trilogy of the elements,” which includes “Fire” and “Earth.” “Water” reveals the traditional plight of widows in India.
Mehta never preaches but instead tells a compelling story of intertwining strands. “Water,” set in British colonial India in 1938, is as beautiful as it is harrowing, its idyllic setting beside the sacred Ganges River contrasting with the widows’ oppressive existence as outcasts.
Mehta sees her people in the round, entrapped by a cruel religious custom but sustained more often by a family’s desire to relieve itself of the economic burden of supporting widows. As a result, she is able to inject considerable humor in her stunningly perceptive and beautifully structured narrative.
Overseeing the ashram is the formidable Madhumati (Manorma), who must meet the monthly rent, as widows are forced to support themselves either as beggars or prostitutes.
Chuyia will not be cowed by Madhumati, and she is befriended by Kalyani (Lisa Ray), who lives apart from the other widows in a tower room with magnificent views of the Ganges. Chuyia receives maternal love from Shakuntala (Seema Biswas), a lovely woman on the verge of middle age who questions the status quo while trying to retain her religious faith.
Chuyia’s arrival at the ashram and her gradual acceptance of her situation takes the viewer into the enclosed world of the widows, but Mehta deftly shifts her focus to Kalyani, who has encountered Narayan (John Abraham), a wealthy Brahmin law student with progressive views inspired by Gandhi.
The question whether Kalyani and Narayan will have the fortitude to defy the taboo of a widow remarrying any man except for a brother of her late husband unwinds in increasingly suspenseful fashion.
“Water” cascades shimmeringly from one inspired, often bitterly ironic and illuminating incident to another, its ending as shattering as its beginning. Paradoxically, it strikes an assuring note of life’s wonder and endless possibilities.
“Water” |*** RATING
PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexuality, brief drug use|1 hour, 57 minutes|DRAMA|Written and directed by Deepa Mehta; starring Sarala, Manorma, Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas and John Abraham|Opens today at the Chez Artiste.
