From: Nads J, Toronto, Canada
Water: Drenched in `Colonial Benevolence'

By: Kamal Arora, Saydia Kamal, Usamah Ahmad

With Vancouver International Film Festival tickets in hand, the three of us waited in a ridiculously long cue to enter a film five years in the making: Deepa Mehta's "Water".

The hype has been intense because the filming was shut down in India, forcing the production team to relocate to Sri Lanka. No doubt, we thought, the line-up represented the controversial stances Mehta has made in past films and we were eager to watch her last znstallment in the element trilogy which included "Fire" (1996) and "Earth" (1998). Unfortunately, we were disappointed and at times offended with both the film and our theatre experience.

"Water" is set in colonial 1938 India. It follows the life of a recently widowed child, Chuyia (Sarala), who is sent to a widows' ashram near the Ganges River in Varanasi. Chuyia befriends Kalyani (Lisa Ray), the resident beauty of the ashram, who falls in love with Narayan (John Abraham). Though marrying a widow was taboo in segments of Hindu society at this time, Narayan's Ghandian thinking transgresses this boundary. However, their love cannot blossom because of plot twists and fateful circumstances.

Though the film attempts to illustrate issues facing women in late colonial India, Mehta falls into orientalist imagery. She endorses notions of `colonial benevolence' that helped rationalize the British administration of India. Imperialists have used the plight of the `oppressed Eastern woman' to justify their exploits. Sati
(widow burning), oppression of widows and child marriage were particularly isolated as examples of the backwardness of indigenous culture and the need for intervention; superior European morals were needed for a civilizing mission. We are not arguing that the traditional Hindu system is not discriminatory against women. Mehta, however, simplifies its complexity and ignores how the `women's cause' was manipulated by the Empire. First-wave feminists also maintained a wounded attachment to, for example, sati to justify their need to be partners in the Empire as civilizing gents. "Water" does nothing to challenge this by perpetuating notions of victimized Indian women lacking agency or means of resistance within the
context of past and current imperialism.

The women of the ashram are represented as meek lambs who, due to the backward nature of Hindu tradition, lead miserable lives. They are seen begging for coins, being scolded by passers-by who fear being polluted, turning to prostitution for livelihood, and visiting a Brahmin priest to learn about their degraded incarnation as women, and so on. These women are vulnerable and hopeless. Although one
character, Shakuntala (the strongest performance in the film played by Seema Biswas), begins to question her situation, this avenue and her own agency are ultimately unexplored fully.

Why does Mehta essentialize their positions as being merely that of `victims' instead of struggling women? We are not being apologists to certain Hindu conventions around widowhood, but questioning why their lives are represented as hopeless instead of active struggles for survival, for spiritual growth and for enlightened renunciation of material needs. The theme of prostitution exemplifies this point.

Mehta constructs widows as so vulnerable, they are forced into prostitution. Again, she denies them agency: why does Kalyani's life lead to an ultimate demise due to shame surrounding prostitution? Why can Mehta not have a character that actively chooses to be a prostitute instead of leading a life in the ashram? Though circumstance can lead women into unwanted professions, Mehta emphasizes `tradition' and `culture' as the roots for these situations and decontextualizes them from colonial dynamics. This is irresponsible given how the image of victimized Eastern women has justified (and justifies) imperialism.

Mehta further constructs a male savior as the route for redemption through Narayan. At one point in the film, Narayan and Kalyani discuss the changing nature of tradition, and how to retain `good' traditions while casting away the `bad.' When Narayan poses the question as to who will decide which traditions are to be kept and which ones are to be discarded, Kalyani answers, "you." Here we see a male, educated within the colonial system as a lawyer, come to save the tragic beauty from the backwardness of tradition; a male who once again, holds decision-making power.

Indeed Gandhi occupies a similar position in the film: he is a colonial-educated lawyer who also comes as savior, preaching Hindu reform and national unity while also touching the heart of Shakuntala. Both Narayan and Gandhi represent enlightened, educated men rescuing the oppressed from Hindu culture.

What can you do? We think you have done enough, thanks.

The question and answer period was an experience in itself. We were in the presence of Deepa Mehta herself, who had changed her flight to make the screening. She said her intention in making the movie was to "move people." Indeed the question asked by an audience member, "What can we do for them from here?" appeared to appreciate this goal. This question is the result of representing women as being so helpless and that they need outside help.

Her story is crafted in such a way that no other responses except paternalistic concern can be expected. Indeed his question ignored the powerful women's movement in India that, among other things, has challenged the legal status of widows. Luckily, Mehta replied that it is important first to fix "our world" before treading out to sea.

Another person asked how Mehta chose the cast. Mehta specifically stated that she had selected Lisa Ray to play Kalyani because she was `pure' `fragile' and `vulnerable.' This characterization is problematic as here Mehta is reinforcing the stereotype of docile, demure and pristine femininity as the ideal form of South Asian womanhood. Though it may be coincidence, there are problematic associations between Kalyani's supposed purity and her very fair- skin. Upon seeing Kalyani for the first time, Chuyia exclaims in awe that she is an `angel.' It is no surprise that this fair-skinned beauty is also the coveted prostitute whose wages keep the ashram alive. Mehta thus does not engage with feminist concerns around dominant conventions of beauty, colour and feminine roles; rather, she reinforces them.

We nervously asked Mehta how she negotiates making a film about themes so easily adopted by the discourse of `benevolent colonialism' in today's context of imperialism where Eastern women's causes are similarly manipulated. She did not offer a real response, just that she felt we gave her an "essay on Edward Said." She claimed her film was not about colonialism but rather Hinduism and that has nothing to do with colonialism.

We were unimpressed: she made a period film set in colonial India, how can she claim that Hinduism in that period was untouched by colonialism?

Perhaps this contradiction mediated our experience in the theatre itself. Given our history as colonized people, sitting in a room with many, many white gazes again forced us to embody this historically subjugated experience within the politics of that theatre. Throughout the showing of the film, we were bombarded with audience-members around us making "tsks-tsks" and sympathetic noises. In the act of making a film about colonial India, Mehta adopted the role of the `native informant' who exposes to the Canadian audience the reality of our backward, culture. We occupied an awkward relationship in that room: though we were represented on film, many around us sounded like they wished to save us from ourselves. In that space, we, like the characters in Water, became subjects of colonial benevolence.