Dharma, Liberation and Religious Geography in the Film “Water” Directed by Deepa Mehta

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A social position of woman in Indian society has always been one of the issues of concern. The attitude to women can be describes as discrimination. Such an attitude was caused by religious and social development of the country. It was never so widely paraded and criticized until the film “Water” was produced by Deepa Mehta.

We got used to Indian films which show positive sides of this culture. However, the film by Deepa Mehta can be considered a film of new generation that attracts attention of modern society to the problem of social relations, in particular, social role of women in India. The society made a great step forward in last decades, but still, in some villages, the traditions described in the film are still preserved.

The film is not only a depiction of social relations and old traditions, it is the author’s perception and interpretation of social beliefs and religious practices in India. In order to convey his idea, the film author makes use of symbols and different technical things. So, in this essay, I am going to analyze the rupture between social beliefs and religious practices in Indian culture using the film by Deepa Mehta “Water” as the best example.

The film is the last part of the Metha’s Elemental Trilogy: “Fire”, “Earth” and “Water”. As the author says: “the trilogy is about elements on one level that nurture and destroy us. They are very tangible elements. Fire is about the politics of sexuality, Earth is about the politics of nationalism and Water is about the politics of religion”. “Water” is the most controversial film that describes one of the aspects of Indian social life that is greatly affected by the religious beliefs.

The director focuses attention on the widows’ fate through the story of a seven-year old Indian girl who became a widow the next day she married. The girl is taken to ashram where widows should live. Through the eyes of this girl, Deepa Mehta analyzes many themes: the theme of love, friendship, religious beliefs and use of religion to justify actions of upper classes. The director analyses such issues as dharma, liberation and religious geography.

The main concern of the film director is a social role of woman, “wives must play their appropriate roles” (Markham and Lohr 2009, 56). Through the description of life of one person (the girl named Chuyia) and people surrounding her, we found out about cruel traditions that defined the rules women had to obey. Woman in Indian society had no social rights. There were many things that she could not do and rules she had to obey.

For example, Jauhar, wife should die if her husband dies, purdhar, a tradition to cover all the body and a tradition the permits young girls to marry. One of the traditions that is describes in the film is Sati. The tradition presupposes that if husband dies, his wife can marry his younger brother, be burned together with the husband’s body or live as a pariah in special institutions. “It has been said that there is no more unfortunate character in the whole range of Hinduism that the vidhava or widow” (Walker 1968, 599)

In the film, we see how parents prepare her for life of a widow. They cut her hair and dress her in a white dress. According to the customs of that time, she will have to live punished by society and mourning her husband. It was considered that wife was responsible for death of her husband. White color that dominates in the film is one of technical things that are used to transfer the atmosphere of religious asceticism.

White color dominates not only in clothes, but in other details, such as bleach white powder which widows throw into the air during the spring festival of Holi. “White is a color of peace and purity,” (Chakravarti 1994, 31). That is why the girl was dressed in white. It meant that she should clear her karma. According to religious beliefs, “karma is the effect of past actions, either in this life or before, on the present life and future incarnation”. (Chakravarti 1994, 15).

Discussing religious geography, religious practices and social beliefs, it should be mentioned that this film shows perfectly the inconsistency of social life and religion. People from lower classes, such as Chuyia and other widows in the house had to expiate the forgiveness for their sin.

Their destiny was to beg money for living. However, the head of the house used one of young widows (Kalyani) as a prostitute to get money and support the house. Of course, the customers were rich people. The status permitted a rich and respected man permittedhave any woman, as Narayan’s father said. This situation in the film shows that upper social layers used religion for their own purposes.

Even the belief that talking with a widow is a sin could not affect such a person. The author, not only depicts social and religious conflict, she also criticize them. She uses the techniques of filming, such as deep focus in some scenes and shows the attitude of characters to the whole situation and makes us understand that they are the people of new generation and can overcome prejudices. This theme is developed through love between Kalyani and Narayan. They characters are the examples of the struggle against prejudices.

The line of dharma is one of the main line of the film. Dharma dictates the right living which should help to reach nirvana and get rid of suffering. The issue of dharma appears at the very beginning of the film when we see a flower of lotus. Lotus is a symbol of purity, fertility and eternity.

Using this symbol, the director leaves the hope that girl whose fate was so unhappy has a chance to be saved. In addition, white lotus is a symbol mental purity and perfection of spirit. It can be interpreted as characteristics of main characters. Each of them is “clean” in his/her own way: Chuyia is still a child, Kalyani and Narayan cleaned their souls with love, and one more character, Shakuntala is shown as a perfect Hindu.

The motive of dharma is one of the main in the film. Again, it is disclosed through the main characters. The director shows the religious and moral sides of the issue. However, the author is far from the religious perception and interpretation of dharma. The moral side of it is in the focus of Mehta’s attention. She estimates that only purity of soul and not blind obeying to rules can save a person. One more important interpretation of the issue is that the author puts the fortune into people’s hands.

The issue of liberation is another important theme of the film. Liberation is the aim of all women of India, liberation is that what the main characters aspire to and liberation is that what they get at the end. Describing this story, the director emphasizes the absurdity of certain social traditions.

The story implies that human happiness does not depend on some traditions that were imposed by some historical events and religious interpretations of certain laws. The author says that every person has right to be happy. And as soon as one realizes it, he should fight for his/her happiness.

The symbol of liberalism in the film is water. It is also one of the main characters of the film, as it begins and ends with scenes that take action near the river. Running water is a symbol of time. It is also the symbol of purity and strength. All the important things and all the important decisions in the film occurred at the water. Another symbol of liberalism is the train that takes main characters into a new and free life.

The film is the depiction of the social beliefs and religious practices that took place in the old Indian society. The director managed to present her interpretation of such religious issue as dharma and the role of woman in Indian society. Through the analysis of the film, I discovered that social traditions were dictated by religious beliefs and were different relatively to different social layers. Various techniques and symbols used in film help us understand the author’s intention.

References

Chakravarti, Sitansu S. 1994. Hinduism, a way of life. Delhi: Jainendra Prakash Jain at Shri Jainendra Press.

Markham, Ian S. and Christy Lohr. 2009. A world religions reader.Singapore: Blackwell Publisher.

Walker, Benjamin. 1968. The Hindu world: an encyclopedic survey of Hinduism, vol 2. New Yourk: Praeger.

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Dharma, Liberation and Religious Geography in the Film “Water” Directed by Deepa Mehta

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