Lalithambigai Antharjanam+Kamala Das+Virginia Woolf+Deepa Mehta=Water

It is a strange title to any article. Four Women are equivalent to Water. The word, i owe a disclaimer to the reader, does not refer to the basic element required for the effloresence of nature and its rebirth. It is the title of the 2005 Deepa Mehta film Water. She started shooting the film after getting permission from the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 2002 with her favorites Nanditha and Azmi. She had to abandon the project as the Hindu Groups claimed that the script of the film was anti-Hindu. She re-started the project with the help of a Canadian producer in 2004 in Sri Lanka. She had to drop her favorites as the script needs a young protagonist, i should say supporting protagonist, since the girl, eight year old Chuiya, is the protagonist of the story.

The title features four women. Three of them are writers, i should say four of them if i include Mehta also. None of the three writers is alive. The first one wrote in Malayalam; the second one in both Malayalam and English and the third one is British and eventually wrote in English. They appear in an order in the title as their influences are seen in the film of Deepa Mehta. The first of the influences has come from Antharjanam. 'Cast me out if you will' is a powerful phrase of hers that is employed by the protagonist of the story 'Admission of Guilt' (Kutta Sammadam)in which the protagonist, a Brahmin widow in her early thirties, is summoned by the elders of the community to take oath before them about her fidelity. She had been married at a very tender age even before she attained puberty to a sixty year old man. Her father exchanged her for a thirty year old daughter of that old man who had been included into the 'Nallukattu' as the fourth of the wives of the child's father. The sixty year old man was sick and the girl did not much stay in her husband's abode. She was brought back to her maternal house immediately. One day when she was playing hopscotch a messanger came and divined the dreadful news of the death of her husband. she lost her husband much before she attained puberty. She stepped into widowhood and had been a widow ever since. She is now found pregnant and the elders want to know the act of immorality on her part. She challenges every one with the phrase 'cast me out if you will', as she says she has been embraced by a divine figure in an unearthly hour when she has gone to have a bath, an ablution to be carried out before setting foot on the campus of temples. I see resemblances between her and the girl Chuiya in the movie Water.

Kamala Das is remembered through the film, as the keeper of the house of the widows decides to send the child to an old man who is in need of a nubile sexual partner. Kamala Das' 'A Doll for a Child Prostitute' is a terrible story that unravels the veneer of modesty of Indian traditional life and exposes scathingly the reality.

I could not help myself except thinking about Virginia Woolf as the supporting protagonist; Kalyani, played by the very beautiful Liza Ray, decides to commit suicide as the lover of hers, again a fine casting as John Abrahams playing the role of Narayan; a radical reformer influenced much by the teachings of Gandhi, happens to be the son of a local big-shot, who is also much entertained by the night visits of Kalyani, as that has become the only source of money for the widows to sustain themselves. Kalyani comes back to the house but the keeper of widows does not let her in. Kalyani takes a firm decision of walking into a water body and drowns herself very much like Virginia Woolf. I must say Kalyani is the predecessor as the film was set in 1938 whereas Woolf died only in 1941.

Deepa Mehta excels in the field of writing. The film is sheer poetry and India are ashamed of not letting her shoot in real setting. Sri Lanka does not resemble much of North India though it has remnants of the South of India. The sets though made with fine artistry and hard work create only an artificial back drop to the story. A good film.