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.
Good points raised by the author here.
As usual, the Western press is very quick to call extreme positions in other (non-Abramic) religions as “fundamentalist.” I do not in any way support the way widows are treated in certain parts of India, as the film depics, but if you call this fundamentalist Hinduism, what will you call some of the Christian denominations in the US? I don’t think I have ever heard the word “fundamentalist” attached to any of the American churches or groups. There is a clear bias against Hinduism in the Western press.
Another aspect about Water is that a director like Deepa Mehta will never come out with a movie based on the negative aspects Islam or Christianity because she knows that (1) it will cause a furore and fatwas will fly, and (2) it may not sell as well.
What do people think of the title of The New York Times review of Water. It is as follows: Film Ignites the Wrath of Hindu Fundamentalists. Is it still igniting the wrath of fundamentalist to this very day? I think this article is oudated by five years-the reference to the term fundamentalist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/movies/03wate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I was curious about this movie since the protests and riots in Varanasi during filming. There was also news of the leading lady shaving her head to look the character. Something was missing from her previous film Earth-1947. the movie just ended with no real conclusion. Aamir was brilliant though
oooo here we go again…
Amardeep
Good thing you brought the topic up. I liked the movie in general, the issues of treatment of widows in traditional Hindu society is a theme that’s been cropping up in Indian cinema recently (eg: Chokher Bali).
I don’t know if this is necessarily a ‘fundamentalist’ issue, but just an issue of denial in general. It’s the same phenomenon that caused people here to ignore, for the longest time, the abuse of children which was prevalent in the Catholic church. Most people don’t like to believe that their religious institutions may have violations concealed in them, that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘fundamentalist’.
I’ve been recommending the movie to most of my friends.
The ‘buzz cut’ thing is a lame attempt at humor, I’m not offended.
I don’t have any problems with Deepa Mehta minting money showing the “poor condition” of Hindu widows or Satyajit Ray showing “Indian poverty”. Of course, they are not inventing anything out of their hats.. 🙂
But do we have any statistics on “how widespread” this practice is, even in 1938.. I am curious because my great grand mother was widowed with not much money at an young age (27) around that time.. with three little kids.. And she did bring them up pretty well..
AB, an interesting fact for you: actually the word “fundamentalist” was first coined to describe Christians the Evangelical churches that became popular in western Europe and the U.S. in the 1800s (try reading this). Some religion scholars say it should only be applied to religious communities with strong traditions of scriptural literalism, that is, the belief that their religious book represents the absolute truth or the Word of God. Hinduism doesn’t really fit the bill, since no one text has that kind of status. There are many scriptures, and not many people would say they believe the stories in the Mahabharata are dictated by God and therefore absolutely binding.
Most people outside of religion studies departments, though, are comfortable using the word ‘fundamentalist’ to describe any kind of extremist behavior tied to religion. The sacking of Deepa Mehta’s set in 2000 might be a good example of fundamentalism (in a broader definition) at work. Even if we don’t use the word fundamentalism, it is still an act of extreme intolerance.
My point here is that the word may be relevant to that event but it isn’t relevant to the theme of the film.
Gagandeep, please read the post — I actually addressed the same article you refer to.
Jeet, The reviews do talk about a part where Lisa Ray’s character has her head shaved. But it’s not clear whether Mehta actually shaved Lisa Ray’s head, or just made it look that way.
I looked forward to this movie for years. and then… ooooo the underwhelm-ment. I kept waiting for the magic of the previous elements. But my friend loved it — as did most of the theatre. I wonder if my disappointment is the result of heightened expectations, or if Mehta really did get soft…. i blogged about it a bit.
“Meanwhile IÂ’ve been surprised by some culturally clueless and simply inaccurate comments from reviewers.”
i’m not surprised at all. even western journalists stationed in india say the most inane things, as do, unfortunately, some indian journalists living in india (and a lot of foreign journalists just regurgitate what some journalists in india tell them, without doing any investigative work of their own). they are both woefully ignorant and ill-informed (maybe in school, maybe in college, maybe from other movies, books that they’ve read). read a biography of golfer vijay singh, and it invariably states vijay is “hindu” for “victory.” they don’t even take the time to differentiate between a religious description and a language.
i think the inaccurate NYT headline is meant to garner more attention for this movie, even though the movie isn’t at the moment garnering opposition in India. it may well do so and then the title would be appropriate, but right now that’s just comes across as an attention-seeking gimic that is being promoted whenever talking about this movie. since Mehta’s problems trying to get the movie made, there has been a documentary and a feature film on the subject by indian filmmakers concerned about the well-being of the widows that were shot in Varanasi and went off without any incident (a fact not mentioned in any of the reviews). maybe it’s because those filmmakers are not as well-known, didn’t make a big brouhahaha but just went about their business and got the films made. this subject of widowhood and the tribulations of widows has been explored before in indian movies and novels without incident.
“This time I hope the central government wonÂ’t just stand by and let “mob censorship” take its mindless toll.
-this is the same party that banned “Satanic Verses” in response to “mob” pressure. even the communist part in india is guilty of bending to this type of pressure (Taslima Nasreen). each party in india has its own standards for what to censor and what not to and what constitutes “mob censorship” and what doesn’t. that is the sorry state of indian politics.
I liked the movie and the message that Deepa Mehta was trying to convey. I know of widows in the villages of Kutch who have had to shave their heads and go live at ‘Widhwa Ashrams’ because they are considered unlucky. Some of them as recently as twenty years ago.
As for the shaving, in Chokher Bali, the old women had cut hair but tmbwitw still sported long tresses. Maybe it’s a generational or regional thing?
Water dragged for a bit but the little girl was amazing. I am generally quite sombre but listening to her tell John Abraham’s character that she was a widow definitely shook me.
Ponniyin, I don’t know for sure how common the practice of the involuntary confinement of widows was in 1938, or how common still is (it certainly couldn’t be legal, though that doesn’t mean it couldn’t still occur). In the interviews Mehta has been doing of late, she says that the specific inspiration for this film was seeing an old, bereft widow woman on the streets of Varanasi, and also that she believes this does still occur in some places.
But tens of thousands of widows still end up in Varanasi and Vrindavan.
Mohini Giri seems to be a person who has made this her cause, and has published a number of studies on the subject of widow displacement. One detailed study is here. She and her team interviewed more than 300 widows in those two cities, and asked them a series of questions relating to their status. I’ve only just glanced at it, but one statistic did jump out: 81% of the widows living in rehabilitation centers in Vrindavan were widowed before the age of 20.
ponniyin, please don’t equate mehta to ray! i would rather have a ray handle sensitive topics critical of indian society than mehta. mehta’s heart may be in the right place (to give her the benefit of the doubt) but her execution is troublesome. one can see the difference in the effect of the movies of the two filmmakers by comparing the reviews of their movies. the reviews of ray’s movies, written decades ago in a less globalized era, promote far less harmful stereotypes than do the reviews of mehta’s films.
For those of who made this movie and those who liked it, what are we doing about it? Can creating awareness among westerners and urban Indians really going to change anything? What is the purpose of the movie?
Supposedly, the closing title cards in the movie claim “There are 34 million widows in India (2001)” implying the happenings are still present and widespread.
DM systematically avoided to point out that the most powereful women in India today is a widow!! (Sonia Gandhi). She purposely forgot to point out that there are at least 4 women CM’s. She purposely forgot to point out that India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh already have or had a women leaders. She purposely does not mention that Hindu’s, on banks of Ganges” worship the “female river”…
DM is fits the definition quite well.
i enjoyed the movie..saw it here, with lisa ray present to answer questions for the audience afterwards… (she wasn’t that impressive..)… but i found the movie and that girl sarala to be superb…
I caught this during a Sakhi event in NYC about a month ago and heard Mehta speak and even got to ask her a question. I have to say I do strongly believe her heart is in the right place and she was very grounded and realistic about it. Asked about her inspiration she said it came from watching a widow struggle.
Before I saw the movie I had several preconceived notions about her rather interesting choice to cast frivolous actors like John Abraham (don’t lynch me ladies) and Lisa Ray who is lovely but I had my doubts. Abraham surprised me because he did his role really well. You can see Ray struggle with her Hindi which sometimes bothered me but she did well.
There were some truly poignant characters in the movie and I couldn’t help but feel how much my Malayali girlfriend missed out on by just reading the subtitles. I’m still amazed to this day the really poor quality of subtitles used in Indian movies. Especially when it comes to filmmakers like Mehta who are targeting a western audience. I could do a much better translation and there is something inherent emotion that is lost in translation. But it was a touching movie.
And yes there are widows in Vrindavan to this day, many living very much like they showed in the movie though many live there out of choice because of oppression faced at home from DILs.
I think movies about such topics should be made. I have not seen Water. I have not been too impressed by Deepa Mehta in past but will still see the movie, perhaps for Lisa Ray and to think about the topic.
On the other hand, I saw Choker Bali and liked it, it had the sensitivity of Rabindranath Tagore written over it.
It is possibly true that treatment of widows is directly tied to their socio-economic status too and that perhaps maybe, has always been the case, to some degree even in 1930s too. Sometimes, it was ploy to get the elder brother’s widow out of picture in power poltics/ inheritance of wealth and land in joint-family system.
In privileged sections of society, I guess it was not an issue: Indira Gandhi was a widow and so is Sonia Gandhi (as hammer_sickel pointed out).
And I think that in terms of having any noticeable effect on the actual problems being addressed, such movies dont go anywhere. In fact someone else should go make a movie on effects the such movies have in real life. For eg, those wonderful children in “Born into Brothels” – where are they and their like today? its still the same old, same old for them i’ll bet. Yeah, its the job of the movie maker to create awareness; but the buck seems to stop right there.
I saw Water at the Smithsonian about a month ago and was totally unimpressed. The victimized South Asian woman theme is getting old. IÂ’m not saying that there isnÂ’t gender discrimination in all cultures and societies, but what I want to know is so what? What are we going do about it?
This debate over the use of the term fundamentalist is interesting because it’s never questioned when applied to Muslims. Fundamentalist is a label that is applied easily and without question by outsiders. Obviously, someone within the group would never use that word to describe themselves. So slippage occurs because, while others may see what they are doing as fundamentalist, they do not. Can something be fundamentalist if the people who are supposedly fundamentalist donÂ’t consider themselves to be?
Amardeep, you make an interesting point about the origins of the term and why it can’t really be applied to Hinduism. Vijay Prashad talks about an emerging Hindutva and the Hindu Right. Do you see the Hindu Right as something separate from Hindu fundamentalism?
“using the word ‘fundamentalist’ to describe any kind of extremist behavior tied to religion.”
it should apply to any kind of extremist behavior, whether tied to religion or not. atheists can be fundamentalist as can communists as can writers as can dancers as can painters etc.
This is hilarious. Any dumb wit could have seen these misconceptions arousing in the minds of Westerners from seeing this movie. Now majority of the western people who have seen this movie, will assume that this is a common practice in India and India is blah blah blah … I posted very similar thing, when the SM posted their first post about Water … I am just surprised that people would have expected anything other than the current views of non-Indian people after watching the movie … I believe Deepa Mehta got exactly the reivews that she was expecting. The usual about trashing Hindusism and Hindus. Even “SM goons” view don’t seem too different for non-Indians …
Amardeep,
Thanks for the link.. ……. During our survey, the majority of the women whom we interviewed were found to be from West Bengal. After having conducted a detailed study of Vrindavan we shifted our attention to Varanasi where at least 10000 out of these 33 million Indian widows reside. We found widows sitting on the banks of the river Ganga at the entrance of the Vishwanath temple holding a small broken bowl in their frail hands begging for alms. …..
WGIA,
I din’t mean to put Ray on the same pedestal with DM. Comparing “Pather Panchali” with “Earth”/”Fire” would be blasphemy.. 🙂
Vijay Prashad talks about an emerging Hindutva and the Hindu Right. Do you see the Hindu Right as something separate from Hindu fundamentalism?
I’d be curious about which Vijay Prashad article you’re thinking of. Remember where you read it by any chance?
Again, I would say that most people use the word fundamentalism these days in a broader sense — general religious extremism. When 500 members of the NDA alliance went to Deepa Mehta’s set in Benares and destroyed it, that was a serious blow to free speech. And it didn’t help that Arun Jaitley and Vajpayee basically washed their hands, and said, “yeah, sorry about the $650,000 of damage our friends did. But don’t expect us to do anything about it.”
Those actions were provoked by a kind of thinking that we might as well call fundamentalism. People weren’t waiting to see what she actually did with the film, and didn’t seem to be concerned that it has a historical setting. They just heard the words “widow,” “prostitute,” and “Benares,” and got ready to pounce.
One of the earlier threads about this film had this comment worth reading.
The comment re-printed an article titled Water: Drenched in ‘Colonial Benevolence’ By: Kamal Arora, Saydia Kamal, Usamah Ahmad
Heck no. There’s still a lot of money to be made from that victimhood.
I’m thinking of writing a story about a woman who has just graduated and works in a call-center in Bangalore. Between constantly fighting advances from her male-chauvinistic boss and her secret crush for a married woman in the HR department (gotta throw some lesbian shit in), she struggles to pay rent and take care of her bedridden mother (who was deserted by her husband (the girl’s father) who went after a younger woman) and college fees for her sister. But wait, as her romance with the married woman progresses, she discovers that her husband is in fact, her father! So now she’s having amorous relationships with her step-mother!
How will she break this news to her mother? How will her mother take it? Should she continue this relationship? Will her sister join in the act? Will the father indulge in vouerism? Who will give medicines to her sick mother while all this is going on? For answers to all these questions, you would have to wait till the story is complete, a producer is willing to produce it (and give it a Hindu sounding title, like “Kunti” or “Kamala’s Kama”) and the movie is made.
For now, just watch MI-3. I heard it’s awesome.
M. Nam
Amardeep, Prashad writes about the Hindu Right in a chapter in “The Karma of Brown Folk.”
earth, fire, water (playing on the hindu concept of five elements)make good, profound sounding titles:do the films fulfill the promise? i’ve seen the first two – cushioned in a historical situation, the first film earned a lot of acclaim (gadar,much low-brow, set in the same time,also gained much from the setting), but i don’t think it brought in any new wisdom to understand the partition. fire was ‘provocative’- in the sense that intelligent viewers felt they had to see this film that dared to explore a ‘new’ kind of relationship in ‘indian’ cinema. what did one get to see : a new kind of masala. i still don’t understand the significance of the chinese gent in the film spewing abuse on india. and certain other characters : the old woman, the swami, the servant, the two husbands.. all caricatured to fit certain stereotypes. this film too gained a lot from the time it was set in: the sangh parivar, riding on the confidence gained from many political successes gave the film much gratuitous publicity. should i watch i film in which lisa ray plays a hindu widow in benares.. with john abraham playing a part he’d have to live two lives to even grasp its basics? is deepa mehta as serious a director as the titles of her films and the publicity/press surrounding her suggest? isn’t she a new kind of formulaic, masala film-maker ?
And why does NYT not report the excution of an Indian engineer in Afganistan, whose wife , on hearing the sad news,later attempted suicide…..and this may need confirmation….there is supposedly a second wife who turned up at the cremation.
I sometimes if Somini Sengupta and co. are allowed to do cultural Quality Control on their colleagues’ briefings. Neale
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.
I noticed this too. It was/is really annoying, particularly since the article had, I think, only one paragraph on the Wrath. Obviously fundamentalism isn’t dead, but I agree that “Film Ignited The Wrath of Hindu Fundamentalists Several Years Ago” might have been more accurate 🙂
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.
I can’t remember my history well enough right now, but I think even in the 1930s, “orthodox” might have been a better, value-neutral word than “traditional” or “fudamentalist.” I remember reading that suttee, at least in West Bengal, was generally restricted to a small subset of the Hindu aristrocracy and that it was played up by the British as one of their ways of “educating the natives” as it were. My great grandmother was a widow in the 1940s and 1950s and she did none of the three options listed.
it should apply to any kind of extremist behavior, whether tied to religion or not. atheists can be fundamentalist as can communists as can writers as can dancers as can painters etc
Primarily on a semantic level, I’m not sure if I agree with this. Systems can be orthodox, millenial, narrow-minded, etc. even if they’re not religious in nature–communists, christians, etc.–but there should be a distinction between describing an orthodox approach to dancing and to God (even if “the God” in question is the idea of the market or the proletariat or whatever). Not doing that seems to strip the word of its meaning and historical context.
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. Due to spiritual inspiration they have thrown themselves at the mercy of God (Sri Krishna) and go to his birthplace to live out their lives in devotion to him. Some of such folks are not even Indian. If most of us see these women and men, most of whom wear the white sari/dhoti of widows, we may assume that they are widows but many are not. Many have chosen a life of singlehood.
Neale, The times did report on that briefly (scroll down).
This hasn’t been a big story in the U.S. in general — no one will be interested in the fate of a single Indian engineer in Afghanistan. (Even the American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are relegated to the back pages, these days) I’ve been concerned about it, but haven’t blogged about it, because what is there really to say about it — except that it’s tragic, and the Taliban are still bastards?
by fundamentalist dancer, painter etc., i meant not those who are orthodox (and i do separate an orthodox approach to God from the word fundamentalist given the political connotations of the latter these days) as such (because i think to be able to break traditional rules and do something interesting in the arts you should have a proper grounding in the fundamentals first before attempting to break those rules) but those who think, like religious fundamentalists (in the sense of the word used today), that that is the only way and who seek to impose that as the only method of dancing, painting etc. Those who are well grounded in orthodoxy of dance, painting etc. are usually more respectful when they do break the rules because they have a better rooting in it than those who merely want to shock and have no proper grounding in the basics.
i know i’m saying this very badly.:) a fundamentalist secularist is someone who takes secularism to the extreme: for example, not allowing Muslim lawmakers in Turkey to wear the hijab in parliament, or the Shah of Iran ordering forced removal of chadhors. (now the discrimination is reverse there.) india is full of fundamentalists in the religious sense and in the secular sense as well.
by fundamentalist dancer, painter etc., i meant not those who are orthodox (and i do separate an orthodox approach to God from the word fundamentalist given the political connotations of the latter these days) as such (because i think to be able to break traditional rules and do something interesting in the arts you should have a proper grounding in the fundamentals first before attempting to break those rules) but those who think, like religious fundamentalists (in the sense of the word used today), that that is the only way and who seek to impose that as the only method of dancing, painting etc.
Yeah, okay–I get the anology. I would still just say “severe” or some such thing, but to each his/her own (word choice :).
Amardeep, Thanks for pointing out the mention in the NYT. But it is only the mention, if i remember right the Water article was hogging the e-headline for a day or two.
I always wonder what makes valid news? The death of Mahajan is huge in India – the circumstances notwithstanding. He changed telcom in the country. But again, no western (we need a better word soon) coverage.
Neale
I’ll take a stab at defending a part of the review:
The connection comes from the fact that women’s lives are considered to draw their meaning from that of their husband, and once their husband dies:
If true, then involuntary widow ashrams serve the same function as Sati or forced marriage to her brother – to tie up an inconvenient lose end, to deal with a woman once her husband is gone and nobody needs her any more.
I have no idea if that analysis is correct. I have no idea how interlinked these practices were (was involuntary commitment a substitute for sati?). Nor do I know about their particular substantive roots.
BUT the connection between the two is clearer than archaic and deplorable practices against women, they follow a logic of a widow not having a proper place and therefore needing to “deal with her”
What do you see that I don’t here? The connection is clear enough that from somebody else I would wonder if they were being disingenuous, but not from you …
For eg, those wonderful children in “Born into Brothels” – where are they and their like today? its still the same old, same old for them i’ll bet. Xfile,
Yes and No.
After watching the movie, I gave money to Kids with Camera – donation and brought their photography book. One of the child was admitted to a private school in US. It can make a difference, yes, but in only in small steps.
Please follow the kids through Kids with Camera website.
Ennis,
Well, for one thing, I don’t know if I buy the three options the reviewer gives us (where is she getting that from, I wonder).
More specifically, defenders of Sati (in its ideal form) talk about it as an expression of devotion — a kind of sacred act that was always defined as voluntary. In practice (one thinks of Roop Kanwar in the 1980s) widows have often been coerced into it, via drugs or just plain force, by the family.
Widow confinement, on the other hand, has a somewhat different iconography. It isn’t a blessed status, and I don’t think pious Hindus would think of the two as related.
But yeah, I admit that’s somewhat of a fine point. (Especially since, historically, both practices were used as ways to handle unwanted women.) Here I was bothered by what I thought of as the reviewer trying to be clever. Some information on living widows in India might have been more salient in a review of this film in particular.
MF Husain is being persecuted again
So that is the Indian Government actively persecuting an artist.
I’ve posted a couple of links in the news section on an interview with Deepa Mehtha and a Harvard author’s take on widows in India.
How about interviewing Hindu women who have remarried and those who haven’t? Has anyone tried to find out what they think about it? Or are they simply native informants? Amardeep could you help us?
Thanks, Dasichist. The Chicago Public Radio interview with Martha Chen is terrific — highly informative, with good examples from her field work in Gujurat. Her book Perpetual Mourning looks quite good, though at $59.95 it’s priced mainly for university libraries.
She talks about the ashrams a bit at 18:15. At the end she also talks about the changes that have been occurring in rural India. (For instance, fewer widows even in rural India shave their heads now.)
(Incidentally, Ennis, she does include a chapter on Sati in her book! Which supports your point.)
Shiva, Try the interview I linked to above. She does get into a lot of particulars, and offer a non-biased perspective on what widowhood means — specifically in the villages.
-this is the same party that banned “Satanic Verses” in response to “mob” pressure. even the communist part in india is guilty of bending to this type of pressure (Taslima Nasreen). each party in india has its own standards for what to censor and what not to and what constitutes “mob censorship” and what doesn’t. that is the sorry state of indian politics.
Oh no, tauba tauba! Arre bhai, you see : banning “Satanic Verses” is an act of most profound secularism, just as the whole constitutional amendment thing for Shah Bano was. Didn’t you know that Amardeep proclaimed himself to be a secular Congresswallah on the other thread? Get with the program, bhai : the only acts that classify as unsecular are opposing separate laws for separate religions, protesting against fatwas from Islamic clerics, prosecuting converting missionaries that denigrate Hinduism or purchase conversion-for-tsunami relief and so on. Get the drift?
Gujjubhai, You really don’t seem like a very friendly or rational person, and I don’t know whether it’s worth it to respond to you. If you want to have a meaningful debate you’ll start responding more to the topic at hand instead of repeating your arbitrary presumptions.
But just because I prefer the Congress to the Hindutvadis doesn’t mean I agree with everything Congress has done or is doing. Just a couple of weeks ago on my own blog I came out against the current reservations policy. I’ve also repeatedly said that I support the institution of a UCC. And nowehere in this post did I say I approved of the banning of the Satanic Verses. I am pretty hardcore for freedom of speech.
Here we are talking about Deepa Mehta. Congress didn’t do enough to protect the screenings of “Fire,” but then, who started the protests against the film? The RSS and VHP. Who rubber-stamped the illegal destruction of her set in 2000, setting back India’s image in the world? The NDA, with full support from the UP government and Vajpayee and Jaitley at the center.
The victimized South Asian woman theme is getting old…
Heck no. There’s still a lot of money to be made from that victimhood.
Yes, there are no victims of gender bias in South Asia.
Or sex bias.
I think Deepa Mehta should send some money to RSS/VHP/whoever who opposed her movies for good publicity..
You add the caption, “film attacked by Hindu fundamentalists” and it would evoke interest even if the movies are crappy.. Sounds like a good business plan.. I know it was a craze among students/youngsters when “Fire” came out to see some “lesbian” action.. 🙂
Amardeep,
I do not think Sati was ever a very prevalent practise in India.
Problem with water is not that it portrays the plight of widows.
First problem is that although it is a period setting western audience will assume the same for current period (This is not to say that widows do not have problem even today, but not of the smae magnitude as that of say 60 years ago)
Second problem is the presentation raises a pertinent question that whether the director seriously wants to explore the issue or it is just a case of reinforcing stereotypes.
To some Americans here it will be difficult to understand, but stereotypes are a touchy issue with Indians.
Regards
Shiva – Martha Chen has spent more time in rural India / Bangladesh than most Indian academics. I haven’t read this work, but I’ve heard her speak, and I’m pretty sure that she has interviewed many people.
I do not think Sati was ever a very prevalent practise in India.
As I understand it, Sati was widely practiced through the middle ages. By the time the British banned it in the early 1800s, it was rare, but even after it was banned it occurred something like once a year. So in that sense you’re right — it’s not very common. (Much more common is the practice of hurting or murdering widows, especially in more recent years.) But of course symbolically it has been hugely important at certain instances. Quite often, thousands and thousands of people would go on pilgramages to the site of a famous Sati. In the 1980s Sati was a rallying cry for the BJP alongside Shahbano (justly) and the Babri Masjid (unjustly).
Incidentally, I just wanted to remind you: Sati is not an issue in this movie.
Second problem is the presentation raises a pertinent question that whether the director seriously wants to explore the issue or it is just a case of reinforcing stereotypes.
Come on, now. This is an Indian woman director here. She is making a feminist statement about a real part of Indian history. She’s interested in it because it’s real, and these particular issues haven’t been dealt with much or at all on screen before.
I’ve been to Mathura and seen some of the conditions widows still live in today–very similar to what I saw in Water. While the conditions for widows in more affluent, urban, or progressive households may not be as harsh, there are still huge human rights issues which come up. Elderly people are often neglected and abused, especially women. Here in the United States, I often see men who lose their wives quickly remarry. I see this slowly becoming an option for women, but there is still so much judgment. I see a lot of people wanting to avoid the “stereotyping”, but it’s important not to ignore a pattern. I especially see so-called progressives become very defensive because of the tendency of white (sometimes somewhat ignorant) sympathizers to view our cultures without the complexity that truly exists. However, many of these same progressives would not want to ignore other ugly issues in our culture such as communal violence. We need to start treating women’s issues as human rights issues.
How common was Sati? Here, from BookRags.com: