Bapsi Sidhwa, "Pakistan's finest English-language novelist" (New York Times), is known for novels that chronicle the history of the Indian subcontinent, with particular focus on the lives of women. Deepa Mehta, a Indian-Canadian filmmaker, is known for her trilogy of movies about sexuality, nationalism, and religion on the subcontinent. The two-novelist and film maker-first collaborated on the translation of Sidhwa's novel Cracking India into a movie, Earth, released in 1998.

Now, Sidhwa's newest novel, Water, is based on the film of the same name directed by Deepa Mehta. The book and movie are set for the same release on April 28, 2006. The movie, Water, is distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures; the book, Water, ($16.95 paperback original; ISBN 1-57131-056-8; publication date April 28, 2006) is published by Milkweed Editions, publisher of Bapsi Sidhwa's novels in the United States.

Water tells the gripping story of an eight-year-old girl, Chuyia, who becomes a widow when the husband of her arranged marriage unexpectedly dies. Chuyia, who had never lived with her husband, was supposed to stay with her family until reaching puberty. Instead, under the dictates of Hindu tradition, she is sent to away to the city, to live in an ashram for widows for the rest of her life.

Water, which tells the story of Chuyia and other women in the ashram, is the third film in Deepa Mehta's trilogy; the novel based on the film is Bapsi Sidhwa's fifth novel about the subcontinent.

FILMING WAS CONTROVERSIAL
In 2000, shooting of the film on location in Varanasi, India, was stopped by government order after violence broke out, including an attempted suicide by a Shiv Sena activist who tried to drown himself in the Ganges. The Hindu fundamentalist party that killed Gandhi also threatened Mehta.

At the time, Bapsi Sidhwa appealed to other writers and artists on Mehta's behalf. Writing to the offices of PEN in the US and to newspapers in India, Sidhwa wrote, "They are using Deepa as a prop to galvanize anti-Muslim and anti-Christian religious fervor."

The same extremist voices called Sidhwa a Pakistani agent: "Because she made a pro-Muslim film like Earth. She is being funded with Christian and Pakistani money to defame Hinduism."

Sidhwa responded: "I am a Parsee of Pakistani origins. The film Earth is based on my book Cracking India. It is the story of the partition of India, and the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh violence that accompanied it in the Punjab, as seen from an 8 year-old Parsee girl's perspective. It is important that the girl is not Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, and so can present the facts dispassionately."

Cracking India and Earth were in President Bill Clinton's briefing kit when he visited India in 2000. Water was eventually filmed in secret. Sidhwa began writing the novel after seeing the rough cut of the film.

TRANSLATING NOVEL INTO FILM AND VICE VERSA
Discussing the process of turning a film script into a novel, Sidhwa said, "I have never worked so hard, but it was for me a new and exhilarating experience."

When Deepa Mehta turned Cracking India into Earth, author and director spent "hours on the phone each day," Sidhwa said, as Mehta "literally carved her cinematic vision out of my novel."

In the case of writing Water, Sidhwa said, "the plot and characters were already there, but I had to bring the skeletal script and cinematic images to life with words. Besides being a gripping story, the plot deals with a subject close to my heart - that of the oppressive hold tradition has on women, in this case, religious tradition. It tells of oppression and the constraints that govern even a girl-child's life in a patriarchal society. I have always been active in women's issues."

Three of Sidhwa's previous novels about the subcontinent have just been reissued by Milkweed Editions. The Crow Eaters is set during British rule; Cracking India vividly depicts the partition of India and Pakistan; An American Brat is set in the 1970s during the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.