Shooting Water: Carol Hoenig
Author Devyani Saltzman and her mother Deepa Mehta were recently in Manhattan for Saltzman's book event. Read about it here.

Recently, I attended a book party and reading at the Indo-American Arts Council in Manhattan for Devyani Saltzman’s memoir SHOOTING WATER: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family and Filmmaking. (Newmarket Press, May 1, 2006) Saltzman is the daughter of award-winning filmmaker Deepa Mehta, who was also in attendance at the standing-room only event. The crowd listened intently as Saltzman read some selections from her mesmerizing memoir. Saltzman’s lilting voice carried the assemblage to India, where she had witnessed intolerance, a voice that no longer expressed the pain the author once had to bear.

Most children of divorce carry a weight of self-imposed guilt, but Saltzman’s weight was much heavier since she was told to pick the parent with whom she’d want to live. The eleven year old chose to live with her father, Canadian film producer and director, Paul Saltzman. The child felt safer with her father at the time. It is in SHOOTING WATER that Saltzman is able to share the weight of that decision and how she came to reconciliation with her mother.

Her mother, Deepa Mehta, had already directed “Fire” and “Earth”. When she was about to film her next movie, “Water,” she invited Saltzman, who was then nineteen years old, to join her in Benares, India where the filming was to begin. Unfortunately, before mother and daughter had a chance to heal the wounds from the choice Saltzman had made all those years before, the production had to close down due to religious fundamentalists destroying the movie sets and threatening Mehta’s life. “Water” is the story of an eight-year old Hindu widow in 1938 colonial India, a story that Hindus did not want told; protestors made this very clear by burning Mehta’s effigy. However, daughter Saltzman did not see her mother die out in that symbolic fire, but instead she witnessed a woman who remained steadfast in her determination to tell an important story—a determination that Saltzman would soon acquire.

Four years later, production for “Water” begins again, but this time in Sri Lanka. Saltzman comes on board, not as a third assistant cameraperson, as she had been in the first attempt, but as a still photographer on the set. During those four years, Saltzman attends Oxford University while also coming face to face with the decision she made as a young girl. Mehta is troubled by her daughter’s pain, “because,” she says in the afterword, “as parents we let her down.” But Saltzman’s parents came to help her sort out her emotions, which had practically immobilized her, while she was attending college. It is then that the healing begins.

Saltzman’s melodic and flowing voice takes the reader along with her in her many discoveries as she grows from a girl to a young woman. She yearns for a love that is unrequited, but discovers that she can survive the hurt. Eventually, Saltzman finds her own place in the creative process and has written a memoir to prove it. She is now working on a novel.

SHOOTING WATER received a starred review in Publishers Weekly.

“Water” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005 to rave reviews.

And, mother and daughter have made peace in the process, the weight having been lifted.