BOOK REVIEW
Water
Title: Water
Author: Bapsi Sidhwa
Publisher: Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, MN
ISBN: 1571310568
Pages: 238
Price: US $ 16.95; Canadian $21.95
Review
By Dr. Rizwana Rahim
Chicago, IL
To write a
novel based on a movie is unusual enough, but to
get it ready for its release has to be a PR maneuver
for both the book and the movie. That happened when
Bapsi Sidhwa agreed to write her new book “Water”
in three months, synchronized to be released on
28 April 2006 with the movie of the same title,
directed by Deepa Mehta.
Most often the trend is just the other way –-
book-to-movie, that is -- in which the book-author
doesn’t see, the characters suddenly leaping
from the page to the screen, large or small. And,
when it does materialize, several years (even decades
and centuries) often pass.
This writer-moviemaker collaboration happens to
be their second: the first was the book-to-movie
transformation of Sidhwa’s novel “Cracking
India” into a movie “Earth/1947”
(1998) by Mehta. This collaboration also has a personal
angle: both -- Pakistani-born Sidhwa who now lives
in the US and Indian-born Canadian Mehta based in
Toronto – have some insight from their individual
and separate vantage points into the customs and
culture of the subcontinent. “Water”
and “Earth,” together with “Fire”
(1996), form Mehta’s controversial movie (or
‘elements’) trilogy. In ‘Water’,
Mehta confronts certain Hindu religious tradition
and practices -- child marriages, pariah-status
of the widows and the resulting societal problems,
issues as emotionally charged today as they were
seven decades ago, a period in which the movie is
set.
The story (deprivation of widows in a patriarchal
society of late 1930s) is largely but not only about
Chuyia, about 8, and her life in an adult world,
immutably harsh practices in the name of religion.
Her father arranged her marriage to a 44-year-old
man, without any prior discussion with her mother
or the child, then 6. Two years later, Chuyia’s
husband dies, and she (too young to understand anything),
now divested of everything and clad in white and
shorn, as the tradition demanded, is committed by
her own father to an ashram for widows in Rawalpur,
along the Ganges. Rambunctious as any child her
age would be, she is forced to live among older
widows under the tyrannical rule of Madhumati which
Chuyia detests.
As she makes difficult adjustments to her new life
as a widow, Chuyia finds support and comfort in
some other inmates, notably beautiful Kalyani (who
had come to the Ashram some years ago under circumstances
not too different from Chuyia’s), Shakuntala
(little older but quiet and mysterious), and Bua,
an old resident.
Chuyia was instrumental, albeit accidentally and
unknowingly, in bringing Kalyani in contact with
Narayan, a young Gandhian idealist (circa 1938),
and then acts a go-between as their romance develops
(an unthinkable development for a widow as well
as the Ashram). Chuyia remains largely ignorant
of what she causes to happen or its import, but
the reader is led, nonetheless, into the brutal
and hypocritically seedy operations of Ashram, all
in the name of religion.
Kalyani is unlike any other resident widow –
though in white sari, she is treated better (occasional
new sari, etc), and keeps her flowing hair. However,
nothing describes the sordid situation better than
some casual remarks: Madhumati admits that “every
penny from Kalyani’s work goes to pay the
rent”; Rabindra, an overtly-pro-British young
man, confides into his friend Narayan that ‘Seths
of Rawalpur seemed to fancy widows’. Madhumati
herself cites what the Mahabharata says: ‘Just
as birds flock to a piece of flesh left on the ground,
so all men try to seduce a widow.’ It is Madhumati
herself who pimps the resident widows out to support
the Ashram and her drug and other addictions, and
for which she uses a eunuch, Gulabi.
Chuyia triggers another long chain reaction when
she blurts out to Madhumati the marriage plans of
Kalyani and Narayan. That enrages Madhumati who
hacks off Kalyani’s hair and locks her up
in her room. Coming to Kalyani’s rescue, Shakuntala
lets it be known that “Kalyani raked in more
money than the other widows … put together,”
as she struggles with Madhumati and frees Kalyani
to go to Narayan.
The story doesn’t end there. Kalyani’s
marriage plans are dashed, as compromising links
emerge; she wants to return to the Ashram but faces
unacceptable compromises. Nowhere to go and in total
desperation, she drowns herself in the Ganges (staying
with the theme, ‘water’). Soon Chuyia
also becomes victim to sordid machinations of Madhumati
and Gulabi, but things take one more turn and thanks
to Shakuntala, Chuyia is finally entrusted to Gandhian
reformists through Narayan. It is a relatively slim
book (nearly 240 pages), with some helpful glossary
of religious terms used.
The subject matter is still so sensitive that shooting
of the movie in India (2000) sparked violent protests,
destruction of the set and public accusations and
threats by the Hindu fundamentalists against Mehta.
Sidhwa, as well as many other proponents of free
expression, publicly defended Mehta and her right
to explore the subject no matter how sensitive or
controversial. However, after nearly four years
of suspension, the shooting locale moved from Varanasi
to Sri Lanka where the movie was completed. These
trials and tribulations are chronicled in another
book by Mehta’s daughter, Devyani Saltzman
[‘Shooting Water: A Memoir of second Chances,
Family and Filmmaking’, ISBN : 1-55704-711-1
(hc); 13: 978-1-55704-711-3(pb)], a book that also
deals with the daughter-mother personal reconciliation.
In ‘Water’, Sidhwa had it both easy
and challenging. The characters and the plot were
already there, all outlined and defined for her,
but the challenging part was not just to transform
the audiovisual part of the movie to the page, and
do it accurately and with sensitivity, but to also
remain within the defined confines. The book will
be judged, fair or not, against its movie version.
Unavoidable as it may be, there are two different
parts (book-reading and the movie-viewing) in each
of us, and they often turn out to be two different
witnesses to the same scene. I have not seen the
movie, but the book is gripping –- tells the
story simply, moves fluently, sketches the details
beautifully.
Sidhwa is an elegant writer, with enormous appeal.
As a Parsi woman of Pakistani origin who witnessed
the violence of the partition as a child, Sidhwa,
as mentioned earlier, has a special perspective
on women’s rights issues of the subcontinent
and is a keen observer and analyst. Her novels have
been translated in German, French and Russian, and
her work honored in her native Pakistan (‘Sitara-e-Imitiaz’),
Germany (Literaturepreis) and elsewhere (‘Cracking
India’, a ‘Notable Book of the Year’
1991 of both American Library Association and the
New York Times).
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