'Water' trickles in
BY ANITA JOSHUA
Water: A Novel, Bapsi Sidhwa, Penguin/ Viking, 2006, p.208, Rs. 325.
MUCH has changed in India since filmmaker Deepa Mehta ran into trouble with the saffron brigade as she began work on her film "Water" along the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi. Still, the film has not been screened in India and no one is willing to hazard a guess as to whether it will be released here.
For, the groups that vandalised the sets of "Water" are still active despite the Bharatiya Janata Party being elbowed out of office at the Centre. Worse, the present Government has queered the pitch for all times by bending to accommodate the concerns of a section of the Christian community during the recent controversy over the screening of "The Da Vinci Code".
But, the story has reached India; through word, if not celluloid. Working the other way round, Bapsi Sidhwa has penned a novel based on the film script. A telling story on the state of widows in India during colonial days, Water exposes the ills of the prevailing social order.
Seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old widow, the narrative brings out the travails of widowhood in crystal clear clarity. Yet, because the chief protagonist is a child, the narrative does not weigh on the reader. Sidhwa, of course, is candid enough to admit that her work was made easier by the well-structured film script provided by Deepa Mehta.
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