You might have decided to skip this one, perhaps on the basis of Sajit’s negative review from a couple of months ago. Or you might go with the positive reviews in half a dozen respectable newspapers (and USA Today) as well as the 88% reviewer approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and risk your $9.50 to support a highly respected Desi filmmaker. Personally, I will probably go see it.
Meanwhile I’ve been surprised by some culturally clueless and simply inaccurate comments from reviewers.
First, the hands-down most facile, offensive, goofy comment I’ve seen in any movie review this year comes from “Metromix,” affiliated with the Chicago Tribune. At the tail end of an almost laughably abbreviated summary, the reviewer tries to gear up readers for the film with a fashion-oriented tagline: “Bonus: Gear up for that summer ‘do: The widows all have buzz cuts.”
“The widows all have buzz cuts.” Wow. That one sentence couples the triviality of the film review business with a shocking level of ignorance. I know these folks have short deadlines for copy, but could they at least look up something on the subject of Hindu mourning rituals before publishing a review of a film on Hindu widows?
On the other hand, it might be offensive, but at least “All the widows have buzz cuts” is pithy and sharp — the kind of outlandish thing you expect the “naughty” character in a Salman Rushdie novel to say. I’ll leave it to readers to give the final verdict.Fundamentalism or Tradition?
Another oddity from some of the reviews is the abuse of the word “fundamentalist.” “Fundamentalism” is pretty appropriate if you’re referring to what happened in 2000, when RSS goons with the support of the UP government attacked Deepa Mehta’s set in Benares, destroying her equipment. (The NDA government did nothing to punish any of the offenders; many people involved in the protests were party leaders and relatives of government ministers.) But “fundamentalist” isn’t quite accurate to describe the setting of the film:
There is a tradition within fundamentalist Hinduism that when a woman is widowed, she has three options: (1) to throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, (2) to marry his brother (if he has one and it is permitted by the family), or (3) to live in poverty in a group home for widows. Although Water transpires in 1938, an endnote indicates that this practice has not been entirely abolished in India. (link)
The reviewer flings around the word “fundamentalist” with abandon, but it’s sloppy. The word doesn’t fit the context of widowhood in 1930s India at all: “traditional Hinduism” or “Hindu customs” are phrases that are more appropriate.
Who said anything about Sati?>
Check out these lines from the Washington Post review:
The subject is the issue of “widow wastage.” Possibly no term exists in English to convey the cultural tradition; it’s a kind of continuation, by less fiery means, of sati, the practice of immolating a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre. As writer-director Deepa Mehta dramatizes it, when a man dies, his widow is a financial burden to all. Thus she is consigned to an ashram, a kind of rooming house/prison for widows. (link)
Huh? There is a kind of logical connection here — involuntary widow ashrams and Sati are both troubling, archaic practices — but they are still two very different traditions with different symbolic meanings.
Depends on what your definition of “is” is>
The New York Times ran a somewhat unusual story about Water earlier this week, “Film Ignites The Wrath of Hindu Fundamentalists.” Though the title suggests the controversy is occurring in the present, the actual article refers again to the sacking of Mehta’s set in Benares in 2000. There is no current controversy over the film in India, because the film hasn’t been released there.
Water is scheduled for a limited release in India (90 screens) in July, and there may well be are more protests, riots, or theater burnings (as in Mehta’s earlier film Fire, 1996). This time I hope the central government won’t just stand by and let “mob censorship” take its mindless toll.
Fundamentalist Hinduism requires women to die with their husbands?! Yeah right. Show me the book in Hinduism that says this, dear friends.
Amardeep (48#)
I agree.
I agree, but I will make a distinction between Sati (who many argue had religios sanctions) and abuse of widows (which is a social malaise). However whatever be the cause such acts are a indictment of the society, the people and the religion.
As said before I conside it most vile.
I do not think that Sati was exactly a rallying point.
I assume you are referring to roop kunwar case. There also the support as well as protest was divided across party lines. I remember some members of Congress supported the incident, while Bhairon Singh Shekhawat condemned the incident, thus earning the ire of community and losing the subsequent elections. (I tried to Google for it but found only this and this)
Anyways wiki has an article about Sati
Oops! In my defense I was just responding to the comments.
I was referring to her earlier work Fire where she used Hindu props (Names like Sita & Radha for protagonist) in order to give a religious statement (unneccessarily in my view) most probably for controversy.
Also I think movies about Widows have been made in the past, problem is that they were mostly arthouse productions and hence not well publicised. Deepa Mehta on the other hand has no dearth of publicity.
Regards
From the wiki: “The custom of the immolation of a widow (or other close relatives and slaves) was also practiced by the ancient peoples of Scythia, Egypt, Scandinavia and China.”
And I thought clogs were the worst things the Scandinavians imposed on their women…
Are you joking here? Most of the Vrindavan widoes (and close friend is a social worker there) are not there by choice, the living conditions are terrible, and the Uttar Pradesh mafia runs huge prostitution rings. Its really a blot on the face of modern India, and quite disgraceful.
Re: Water. Why should a movie have a purpose? Why can’t it tell a story. It shouldn’t have to bring up the counter-example (i.e., Sonia Gandhi) to make the example (mistreatment of widows) any more relevant.
I am not going to say that mistreatment of widows in India is common. Even if there are 100,000 widows in Vrindavan and Kashi, living in horrible conditions, and many more who are midtreated in their own homes, it is a drop in the bucket in nation of a billion people. That fact doesn’t make any mistreatment appropriate, and if it happens, it should be called out.
And who cares if Westerners get the impression that India is backwards. (i) in some ways it is and (ii) why is it relevant what they thing.
Hari (54#)
Could you give some reference.
Regards
Amardeep and Ennis,
You don’t get my point. Have you talked to anyone?
And re Roop Kanwar one other ‘progressive’ politician who has kept very quiet about it is VP Singh. In those days when he was busy attacking Rajiv Gandhi’s administration, Blitz, one other pro-Congress publication; and of course the Indian Express, criticised Weepy for his silence. The entire Rajput group (including Arjun Singh) cutting across party lines is alleged to have soft pedalled the issue so as to keep their vote banks intact.
And Amardeep, this isn’t the first time that a movie has dealt with the issue. And why do NRI movie makers have no time for mainstream Indian cinema? Maybe it is too low brow and not arty enough? Durai one of the early-70s new wave film-makers in Tamizh (along with Bharatiraaja, Rudriah and Mahendran) made “Oru Veedu Oru Ulagam” (one house, one world) around 1980. In the movie Shobha (who won the National Best Actress award for her work in Pasi (Hunger)) is the daughter of a vaidika brahmana (a priest) married into a less orthodox family. When her husband dies in an accident Shobha’s father insists on subjecting her to every ritual (breaking her bangles, removing her manglasutra, wiping off the bindi) but when it comes to the ultimate indignity (tonsure) the father in law steps in (after having sat through quietly thus far) takes her away. Shobha recovers from the tragedy and gets back to her studies at college… Raj Kapoor’s Prem Rog deals with the same theme in a more grandiose fashion. Three Telugu movies, two of them by the famed K.Vishwanath one of which was remade in Tamizh (with Kamalahasan) and in Hindi (with Vijayashanti and Anil Kapoor) have the widow remarries and gets on with her life. These aren’t arthouse productions (thankfully) and have been very successful. And in classic mainstream Indian movie fashion are optimistic (as the late Indian movie critic Hamiduddin Mahmood always pointed out) and progressive. Of this series Durai’s is still the best and in its day provoked some serious discussion (that some would dismiss as petit bourgeois). Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.
Another sort of random question:
Why do we always talk about only the British banning the Sati? They were not the first administration to do so.
And who cares if Westerners get the impression that India is backwards. (i) in some ways it is and (ii) why is it relevant what they thing.
Exactly.. Why should anyone care?. If “Deepa Mehta” makes money, it’s her business skill.
Like Shiva remarked, there are mainstream Indian movies that deal with “widowhood” and are commercially successful too. K.Vishwanaths “swatimutyam” link is one such movie starring Kamal, Radhika.
You don’t get my point. Have you talked to anyone?
Shiva, I still don’t understand your point. Why would live interviews with widows be pertinent if the subject is a film about widows in Varanasi in 1938? It would be interesting in its own right to do such interviews, but what you’re asking is well beyond the purview of a blog post.
One thing Martha Chen does mention in that interview (I still recommend you download the 10MB mp3) is that her work is strictly confined to rural India. No one is implying that any of this is still happening in the metros or even the mid-size towns. She knows her stuff, and she avoids making broad generalizations or oversimplifying the complexity of the issues.
Thanks for all the tips on Tamizh and Telegu films dealing with widowhood. Perhaps it would have been more correct to say these issues haven’t been dealt with adequately in Hindi cinema.
And the Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar stuff is interesting, but isn’t it true that once the differential civil codes were introduced after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the earlier law legalizing remarriage was no longer in effect? As I recall, the first Hindu Marriage Act implemented a much more conservative legal code than had existed up to that point.
And then of course there’s this: “For his stand he was virulently attacked by conservative vested interest groups and the shastrakars (cleric) of the day. He often received threats of physical violence and death.“
What does that have to do with the price of tea in Tripura? No, I haven’t gotten in a time machine and spoken to widows in 1938. No, I haven’t gotten in a plane and spoken to modern rural Indian widows today. And I definitely haven’t spoken to a statistically significant sampling of them.
There are many things that I haven’t done, where I rely upon the scholarship or reporting of others. Are you saying that I can’t accept any information unless I’ve done the primary research myself?
Amardeep,
You are forgetting one of the greatest bollywood movie that somewhat dealt with a widow trying to get back her life (but fate saying no) is: Sholay.
Sure, that was tangential to the story but they have been umpteen movies, like Prem Rog (as shiva mentioned), apart from Choker Bali.
The SM crew needs to put together some sort of media pack. In order to truly be a mutineer you need to have: -Watched Sholay -Read A Suitable Boy -Watched Star Trek
I know I’m missing other essentials.
Another glamorized rehabilitation of widow in Bollywood:
Andaz (1971): Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini, Shammi Kapoor.
I can dig other examples too.
I am on roll.
We cannot talk about “widow” in Bollywood without discussing: Phool Aur Patthar – a classic by Dharmendra and Meena Kumari. It is quite a decent movie. I saw it in late 70s-80s even though it was made in 1966 and liked it.
India was never a contiguous entity before the mid 1800. Early to mid 1800s was the downfall of the Mughals. Even when the Mughals were reigning supreme in much of North India, there was NO CONCEPT of western style legalizing of marriage (at least for non-Muslims, the majority)
Even as early as 1950s no one give a damn about registering their marriage. And this is in independant India. So having a law on the books that controled Hindu marriage (out of colonial benevolance, or whatever other reason) is irrelevant.
Amardeep (59#)
I don’t think that arguement is that there was no opposition.
Rather the argument is that there were enough Hindus who sought to reform the religion and main actors were not british.
I think Arya Samaj movement was also significant in reformation
Regards
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2004/02/05/stories/2004020500040100.htm
http://203.200.89.68/mad.asp?fodname=20040524&fname=Making&sid=1
Thats where I dont agree. The movie proclaims this is a present and ongoing Hindu practice. E.g the NYT article says
Whereas contempory and classical Hinduism is devoid of any such practices at a widespread scale. Linking it to Hinduism, without much references, belittles the fact that even Mahatma Gandhi was a devout Hindu. Most of his ideas and inspiration were rooted in Hinduism.
Steering this conversation away from its serious tone – the current issue of Esquire (with Dave Chappelle on the cover) features Lisa Ray (luminously photographed)in the section “Funny Joke by a Beautiful Lady” and Padme Lakshmi in “10 Things You Don’t Know About Women”. Unfortunately, there is nothing on their website, so you will have to check it out at a newsstand.
PremRog with Rishi Kapoor and Padmini Kolhapure is the first movie that I saw that dealt with widowhood. Good ol Raj Kapoor had a way of adding the usual masala stuff with important social messages to create enjoyable films.
Good ol Raj Kapoor had a way of adding the usual masala stuff with important social messages to create enjoyable films.
He was an absolute master at that.
I think my list for Bollywood movies with widow-romance theme are: a) Phool Aur Pather, b) Prem Rog, c) Sholay, d) Chokher Bali, e) Hum Tum, and f) Andaz (there are two: one with Shammi Kapoor and another with Akshay Kumar)
If you google, there are more.
Amardeep,
My point of view comes from what I have seen and heard of in India. Instead of discussing an academic work how about talking to people who know about the issue? I am not suggesting that Mehta shd make a documentary. It is not that she is unfamiliar with widows as she has talked about her grandmother (whom she describes as an all powerful matriarch). It is more interesting to compare Water to the many other movies that posters have pointed out on this thread rather than discuss it by itself.
Ishvar Chandra Vidyasagar tried to reform from within while the Brahmo Samaj branched out. But that was a 150 years ago. I hope that we live up to his vision in full measure.
But as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over. Is this what inspired Deepa Mehta to make Water?
I shall take the unpopular stand here.
Hinduism or not, fact remains that women’s rights have a long way to go in India. And movies such as these won’t be made if there were no problems. I, for one, am glad that someone’s making these movies in a watchable way and even making some money out of it. If money is being made, at least people are watching it. Far better than making some seriously depressing art film which nobody watches. This is a freakin movie, for God’s sake, not a documentary. She has some creative licence.
Growing up in middle-class India, I can tell you the disdain for women’s rights is still very very ingrained in India. Have you ever listened to a group of aunties get together and gossip about how some widow in the neighborhood is planning to get married again? And this is in middle-class Bombay. I can only imagine how it must be in more rural areas.
Are you going to gimme all that tripe about how we worship female dieties/rivers etc so we couldn’t possibly have disrespect for women’s rights? We desis are quite accomplished at the art of restricting others by placing them on a pedestals…(ask anyone here who’s grown up trying to meet the ‘ideal boy/girl’ expectations of their parents). Worship can be a very effective mode of bondage.
Orientalism? Native informants? I just finished reading Said’s book last week. It is quite possible to get totally steeped in that idea too, suspecting anyone and everyone of orientalism and related concepts.
Having said that, I do think that the Raj Kapur approach, or that of ‘Hum Tum’ works better for Indians in India. Sneak in new ideas like they’re natural things to do and cloak it with tons of masala.
One instance that I loved was the sneak placement of a gay male couple kissing in ‘Kal Ho na Ho’. Didn’t hear any protests about that one 🙂
Technophobicgeek, Thanks. As this comment thread was developing, I came across an article on Sati by a scholar named Francis Jarman. He quotes Soma Wadhwa saying something quite similar to your comment:
The article can be downloaded here (it’s a PDF). Soma Wadhwa’s original article on Sati was published in Outlook in 1996.
One instance that I loved was the sneak placement of a gay male couple kissing in ‘Kal Ho na Ho’. Didn’t hear any protests about that one 🙂
Where was this? I must have missed it entirely (unless you’re talking about the faux gay relationship that Saif Ali Khan and Shahrukh Khan had…or the thing with the dog 🙂
btw, you might dig this fake poster from Fark.
Sure Deepa Mehta may well have been touched by the condition of widows in India, but I suspect that what really motivated her to make “Water” was the knowledge that movies about street kids/’born into brothels’ kids/widows/other ‘third world’ stereotypes tend to get attention in the west especially if they also involve touching stories about the human spirit trying to triumph through it all. Basically feel-good-for-the-west movies leaving the audience feeling (1)oh the horror of the conditions in those third-worldey places…OUR society is not like that and (2)but individuals with certain types of virtues that we value (determination, bravery, perseverance, individuality, ‘goodness’…)can sometimes triumph and what’s more(3)we’ve learnt so much about this other culture through this touching bit of cultural-tourism.
As for DM’s description for how the idea of the film came to her — how no-one would speak to the widow on the beach in Bombay (or some such) — this is to our shame, perhaps, but how often do any of us (including DM) speak to various poor homeless people/’beggars’ etc we see around us whether in India or in the US? I always try to at least smile/acknowledge them in some way … but (she sadly admitted) I also usually quickly walk on both because I’m usually rushing off somewhere, don’t want to get too ‘involved,’ and want that Guilty-I-should-be-doing-more-I-Have-so-much feeling to go away 🙁
Please, listen to yourself. If having an opinion about other’s life is synonymous to disdain for their rights, then what would you call your having an opinion about those gossippers? Disdain for their rights?
Women bitch about other women. Everywhere. Whether it is a widow remarrying or a bride getting pregnant within two weeks of marriage. Let’s not turn a natural process into a legal issue.
There is no one answer to what all women want. And it’s not a binary choice. The above question may generate a different answer from every woman on the planet.
Women have all legal rights in India. That’s the most important issue. They may be treated like dirt by their husbands in the bedroom or brothers in the kitchen or father in the farm. That’s not a rights issue – it’s an issue of love, compassion and humanity. It’s the job of civic soceity to enforce that.
M. Nam
TPGeek # 74
Lot of people wouldn’t have a problem, if DM and her cohorts just marketed this as just a movie with creative license, instead of how the movie was marketed. DM claims in her interviews that the movie portrays what happened and is continuing to happen in India including her claim of 33 million widows suffering (I am not sure where she came up with this). Out of a billion population, there wil be a lot of widows and not all of them have the same problem. There are a different shades of gray. That is why lot of people have a problem with her. I consider her as a charlatan who hijacks the issues for her own glory. You guys can continue to defend her, but she doesn’t really advance the cause.
It is happening slowly in India in a lot of middleclass households, where (atleast in TN, where I come from) widows are not shunned (since they are mothers of somebody). Of course these things are not glamorous. Everybody wants to see change in a jiffy and lot of the folks here are so brainwashed with the feminist and leftist idealogy at the exterme ends of the idealogy as taught in the schools here. Anything in the middle is not ok.For ex, my mom is a widow and she stays with me and my sister some of the time and at other times in India. She is till not comfortable in staying with my sister, even though my brother in law asks her to stay longer as it is a great help to my sister and her family and we can’t even broach the subject of remarriage even if we wanted to. That is what she is comfortable with. She doesn’t wear white and participates in all functions. I also know a lot of people whose moms are widows and they don’t wear white and particpate in all functions (this includes orthodox brahmin families). But according to the extremists, they will be considered oppressed and their freedoms are suppressed.
I am disappointed to see that both technophobicgeek and Amardeep assumed that since I didnt like the colonialist portrayal of Hindu society, I am automatically from the “Women worshipper” camp. You assumed that I am claiming that women in India enjoy the same rights as women in west do. This assumption smells of elitism.
The west has seen women’s rights come about in the very very recent past, more importantly it has developed purely organically, from within. The same way Indian women’s rights should develop. Not by colonialist portrayals !!! Not by justifying the “civilizing mission” of the Raj. !!!
The inclusion of liberal values in the popular culture is the organic way of bringing about the change.
The west has seen women’s rights come about in the very very recent past, more importantly it has developed purely organically, from within. The same way Indian women’s rights should develop.
RC: I’d add a slight modifier: women’s rights in the US, “developed purely organically, from within”… but from within the white socio-economic stratum. Let’s not forget that. There are lots of “feminists” of color and lower socio-economic status who have felt very frustrated during the “Women’s Movement” of the 60’s, 70’s and onwards because it has been largely a white middle class women’s movement. One of the reasons as to why this mainstream white middle class female movement has come under criticism is that it does not effectively deal with the issues of race and class, aspects which cannot be omitted since they are factors- along with gender and sex- that define women’s position in society. Anything sort of “liberation” deriving from this section of society that then becomes a part of the mainstream is not fundamental “liberation”.
Another example: the Vietnam protests. The majority of the Vietnam movement had been composed of white middle class Americans, one of the reasons being that they had been affected by the draft laws (exempting the waiver of college students). This is why one says “bourgeousie (sp?) hippies”– these were middle class citizens who were disaffected and couldn’t bear the thought of being sent to Vietnam to die for an unjust war.
Perhaps we should also think about what “feminism” in its current manifestation actually means in practice, and whether this ideology in practice truly gives women equal rights, equal pay, and just treatment. To close the circle, if women’s rights in India are to take firm root and essentially change the current overriding engendered framework, I’d argue that it’s not going to be led by middle class women living in Delhi and Bombay.
Huh, RC, I didn’t mention you specifically anywhere! And I don’t see the connections in the logic above.
M.Nam, there are a lot of legal things/rights available to people in India which are not enforced. And part of that definitely is because of lack of social pressure. I can see where you’re coming from, social change should ideally come from society rather than govt, but someone has to do something to start the process. If everybody in society waits for everyone else to change before changing themselves, of course, nothing ever happens.
Smart argument, that, I must give it to you 🙂 Unfortunately, it doesn’t change anything.
This was in the first few scenes of the song ‘Kuch to hua hai’, which has random shots of lovey-dovey couples: one old couple on a bench, a pair of kids, a harley-riding leather-clad biker pair and these two white dudes.
The faux gay thing was kinda homophobic by American standards, but still I was glad they even brought the topic up for discussion. For my parents and several of my friends, it was quite bewildering at the beginning (what’s wrong with two guys sleeping in the same bed?) and I had to explain things to them…hmmmm. Unfortunately it seems that there’s no way to introduce a discourse about homosexuality without a corresponding male homosexual panic 🙁 Sad.
Here’s the video on Youtube
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1GXVo77WNjk&search=Kuch%20to%20hua%20hai
Watch at time 00:36.
Regarding the historical treatment of widows in India, I remember reading somewhere that, according to colonial census takers, only 15% of Hindu castes forbade widow remarriage. In William Pinch’s ‘Peasants and Monks in British India,’ the author mentioned that certain peasant and artisan castes underwent a move towards ‘kshatriya-isation’ that involved, among other things, an encouragement of sati among their women and discouragement of widow remarriage. What’s often annoying about feminist, ‘secular’ types is that they often take their own usually high-caste mores as normative, while ignoring the fact that other communities might have had different standards – Mehta’s ‘there are 33 million widows in India’ is a prime example of this.
Even more reason, IMHO, to draw attention to this. Why should the so-called ‘higher castes’ get away with such reprehensible traditions?
Whether we like it or not, the higher castes are the usual face of India to the outside world (more education, opportunities etc). They should be the ones getting their sh*t together.
I have my share of beef with uber-feminists, to me there’s nothing ‘feminist’ or ‘secular’ about demanding that these traditions are changed.
Here’s the video on Youtube
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1GXVo77WNjk&search=Kuch%20to%20hua%20hai
Watch at time 00:36.
Oooh–good catch, technophobicgeek (apparently not all that technophobic ;)! I can’t believe I either missed that or blocked it out somehow.
The faux gay thing was kinda homophobic by American standards, but still I was glad they even brought the topic up for discussion.
I agree. I think it’s actually a sensible and funny way to introduce the topic, rather than something heavyhanded that’s going to get everyone’s panties in a bunch. And I certainly don’t look to Bollywood to adhere to American media standards on lgbt issues…yet 🙂
This is what Roger Ebert had to say about Water:
Food for thought..
re: khnh and homosexuality, check out this remix film from this site.
I thought that the shaving of head and wearing of white sari was not a pan-Indian custom but rather one mostly centered amongst Bengalis. Am I right or wrong? Most of the widows in Vrindavan who do so are Bengali (maybe all of them). For that matter, most of the non-widow renunciates in Vrindavan are Bengali also. There is a huge connection between Bengal and Vrindavan due to the Vaishnava religion. As far as Varanasi widows I don’t know if they also happen to be predominantly Bengali or not. Anyone been to Varanasi who can verify the regional background of the widows there?
54 Hari wrote in respone to my comment- “Regarding Vrindavan, there are literally thousands of women and men living there in what would be considered impovereshed conditions by all of us, by choice.”
Are you joking here? Most of the Vrindavan widoes (and close friend is a social worker there) are not there by choice, the living conditions are terrible, and the Uttar Pradesh mafia runs huge prostitution rings. Its really a blot on the face of modern India, and quite disgraceful. ………………………
………………………
No, I wasn’t kidding. I have personal experience with this way of life. However, at the same time there may be thousands of actual widows who are not there by choice and who are not living simply (in poverty) by their own desire or by the strength of their spiritual inspiration.
I think this is a common practice in certain community to bring negative aspect of HINDU religion and make fun of the religion as a whole. And any minute thing available in this religion is directed to all the followers of HINDUISM. Amardeep you are enjoying the misery of HINDU followers not really helping the cause of a better life for widows. If you are so touched by this movie would you go marry one of them to you or your kids?????
I know what goes in places of worships. There is always a direct taunt from the people preaching other religion towards HINDUISM. Hinduism is a very progressive society. It is the oldest religion in face of earth. It has been preaching for peace and harmony with other religions. DonÂ’t forget that this film is created by another HINDU.
If Hinduism has been running by fundamentalist (as other main religion of India do), this film may not have been completed. Deepa knows it very well as she is herself a part of HINDUISM. Well she is also not brave enough to put some light on the real issue faced by females of other religion in INDIA. She knows that if she tries to do portray a SIKH or MUSLIM woman in this fashion she will be facing with mindless goons with bandooks.