Water (Extra Credit)

Films by Deepa Mehta fire and water, have a same theme; the desire of liberty in Indian culture. When we say ‘Fire’ was about women seeking freedom inside of her family, ‘Water’ is the movie that shows widow’s desire of freedom from the prejudices and gender discrimination. I really enjoyed the movie ‘water’ because it is not like common movies which director brings up the problem and make fights against those bad customs exist in the movie. Instead, this movie chose to describe characters’ lives which rather let go those customs to remain and suffer from those corrupted practices. One of my touching moment was when Chuiya was answering to Madhumati(the leader of the house of widow)’s question, ‘Wife is part of her husband while he’s alive, and when husband die, God help us wives also half die, so How can a half-dead woman feel pain?’. She replied as ‘Because she is a half alive’ and I found it really cute.

It is true that widows in early 1900s in India were living in a below life of human. As in this movie, they were described as ignorant and treated as outcasts and portrayed their lives as ended in the moment their husbands died. They were accepting those customs without trying to know the way they can stop the degradation upon women. It made me upset that all they can hear regarding this question was ‘only God knows’. This movie demonstrates the Hindu caste system that strictly implemented through religion. Not only this movie was focused on the differences and equal rights on gender(woman described half-dead after their husband die), it also depicted those strong faith in orthodox Indian religion, because even though the law in that era already permitted the remarriage of widows, they just refused to do it while it was banned from their religion. It made me feel bad towards the fact that this practice still goes on in some parts of India.