Runner Head: Water

Hinduism in the Movie Water

Hinduism in the Movie Water

Introduction

I recently watched the film shocking in a class of about eight-year-old widow who never got to meet her husband, and is kept in an institution for widows called the widow's ashram to spend the rest of his life. According to Indian tradition, the widow must remain in seclusion, apart from the rest of the world, the rest of his life and forbidden to ever re-marry. Impressive story about the sad fate of widows in India during the last century, to the idea Ghadi started changing traditions in India.

First of all, water is also the story of people trapped in a hidebound culture that values tradition above the basic rights and dignity of women. I was not aware of this issue, but this film sharply questions of religion, which introduced a level of degradation to women. The film deals with the emotional rights of women.

Discussion

The movie is based on the "traditional" marriage. Following Hindu tradition in this period, the marriage of young girls to older men was commonplace in some parts of India. When a man from an Orthodox family of Hindu died, his young widow would be forced to spend the rest of his life in the ashram for widows, to atone for the sins of her previous life that supposedly caused the death of her husband. Although the law, which may remarry widows was passed, many people tried to ignore the real public places. Tradition imposes inhumane rule and only the strong will for freedom can break the momentum to keep the conservative and clear customs.

In addition, widows have very low social status in the Hindu, and their opinion is considered ill-omen. Often accused unjustly for the death of their husbands and operated in all respects as relatives and strangers, widows are expected to devote his life to God and live a life of renunciation.

In 2000, the Indo-Canadian director Deepa Mehta and her film had been expelled from the Hindu holy city of Varanasi. An angry mob, apparently supported by local political and police apparatus, disrupted many films Mehta, "Water" for fear of - and perhaps rightly so - that the film will challenge the ancient traditions of Hinduism and portray religion in a bad light.

Although the central government, headed by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, had approved the script, "Water", local authorities cannot guarantee the protection of film, many of whom were foreigners. And so Mehta decided to abandon the project.

But Mehta spent on your dream movie "Water", a tragic story about the life of Hindu widows' life of austerity in an ashram in the Ganges River, and people who abuse religion to serve their needs. Four years later, Mehta made a film crew in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and recreated Varanasi, a city in northern India. After the successful launch in Canada, "Water" opens in the U.S. on April 28.

Mehta's "Water" - the latest chapter in her elemental trilogy (the other two films were "Fire" ...