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W A T E R W A T E R
from Deepa Mehta
„ Child, do you remember your marriage? Your husband is dead. Now your are a widow." India, 1938: Chuyia--an 8-year-old married girl who accompanies her husband in a bullock-cart on the way to a big town. The husband, a much older man, is dying, and soon Chuyia will become a widow. In Varanasi, the seemingly quiet lifestyle of widows in an ashram is shaken up with the arrival of Chuyia. She is playful, often challenging the authority of Madhumati (Manorama), the senior widow in the ashram. And she is serious about going back to her home to be with her parents, even though her father brought her to the ashram. The ashram has an assorted mix of widows--the overweight and overbearing Madhumati, who shares pot at night with her eunuch friend Gulabi (Raghubir Yadav); Shakuntala (Seema Biswas), a sensitive middle-aged widow, who becomes a mother-figure for Chuyia; and the prized possession of the ashram: the beautiful, young, fair-skinned Kalyani (Lisa Ray), who is allowed to keep her hair long and sleep in a special room on the second floor of the ashram. Kalyani also takes to Chuyia and the two become close friends. The ashram has a big, dark secret. At night Gulabi takes Kalyani to rich male clients who pay money for sexual liaisons with the beautiful widow. None of this is prescribed by Hindu religion, but then Kalyani’s beauty brings some extra money, which helps the upkeep of the ashram and also Madhumati’s pot-smoking habit. By chance one day, Chuyia and Kalyani meet a young handsome lawyer, Narayan (played by the Bollywood star John Abraham). Narayan is a follower of Gandhi and opposed to the archaic Hindu practices. Narayan befriends Chuyia, but more importantly, he falls in love with Kalyani and proposes to her. Naturally, Madhumati is opposed to their romance. The old widow’s reaction to the young lovers’ affair triggers a sequence of tragic events.
The ashram has a big, dark secret. At night Gulabi takes Kalyani to rich male clients who pay money for sexual liaisons with the beautiful widow. None of this is prescribed by Hindu religion, but then Kalyani’s beauty brings some extra money, which helps the upkeep of the ashram and also Madhumati’s pot-smoking habit. By chance one day, Chuyia and Kalyani meet a young handsome lawyer, Narayan. Narayan is a follower of Gandhi and opposed to the archaic Hindu practices. Narayan befriends Chuyia, but more importantly, he falls in love with Kalyani and proposes to her. Naturally, Madhumati is opposed to their romance. The old widow’s reaction to the young lovers’ affair triggers a sequence of tragic events.
