Guilty Of Innocence

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JEWEL_RAYS (AMY) FOR THE 8TH OF JUNE! LOTS OF LOVE AND KISSES TO YA HUNNY, MWAHHHHHHHHHHH!

I was thinking of watching the latest horror movie 'The Omen' last night, but since it was raining cats, dogs and even kangaroos ;-), we decided to stay indoors. Luckily one of my friends dropped in with the Hindi movie Water, a dvd I have been asking her to lend me since I read about this movie a while back. The director of this movie Deepa Mehta was not allowed to make this movie in India as there were many protests by Hindu extremists against it in 2000. The film was falsely accused of portraying Indian women as prostitutes, being part of a Christian plot against Hinduism, and even supporting the Western oppression of India. Amidst escalating protests, violence and personal death threats against Mehta and lead actors Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, Mehta decided to cancel the production. That banned this movie in India. Although Mehta was forced to cancel Water in 2000, she never abandoned the project and last year was finally able to resume the production in Sri Lanka under an assumed name and with a new cast and a strict code of secrecy. So we watched Water last night and I was mesmerised by a bubbly little new actress who captured my heart with her very sweet and highly praise-worthy acting. Though this movie was a Hindi movie, the little actress in it is Sarala, a Sri Lankan girl and her acting is simply amazing! She had to learn Hindi (as she only spoke Sinhalese in real) just to do the movie and I think she's a brilliant little girl who is talented beyond her age. She was a treat to my eyes, heart and soul. In this movie, there's also Bollywood actor John Abraham (yes girls he looked hot even in those ancient clothes ;-) and the beautiful Bolly/Hollywood actress Lisa Ray (guys she's stunning!).

For those who haven't seen Water, the movie is about a child-bride and the heavy prices child-widows had to pay in a pre-independent India, set against the backdrop of Mahatma Gandhi's rise to power. 8yr old child-bride Chuyia (actress Sarala) hears of her child-husband's death. Her father, following the ancient custom, cuts Chuyia's long locks, shaves her head and exiles her to a widow's ashram(a spiritual place of refuge) where she is meant to live until the end of her life (yes it used to be plain cruel and unfair a life for widows back then). According to ancient Hindu texts, when a husband dies, the widow has three alternatives: Commit sati (immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre), Marry his brother (if one is available), or Live in forced poverty and isolation, withdrawing to an ashram for widows (one like where little Chuyia was sent to). Chuyia's aggressive and lively presence starts to affect the lives of the other widows of various ages in the ashram. She is boisterous, brutally honest and pretty cheeky. Though she is a very small girl, she asks very big questions...questions that the doomed widows in the ashram feared to even think about. She becomes very close with one of the young adult widows in the ashram Kalyani (Lisa Ray), and spends most of the time with her. The movie recites a grueling story of the harsh and punishing lives some widows spent as a result of meaningless ancient customs and poverty. Families that couldn't afford to keep their widowed children at home, sent them away to these kind of ashrams not only because of blind tradition but also because it meant one less plate to serve at home.

These women used to live in the ashram all their lives...from the tender age of 6 or 7 to the day they breathed their last breath. Hiding their desires in fear of society and culture, blinded by a faith that would punish them if they seeked any Earthly pleasures, these women suffered in silence, sacrificing their entire lives just to die one day having done nothing in life that they ever wanted to. How sad is that! I was feeling this immense pain for these women as I watched the movie and felt the need to put some sense into some very cruel people out there but my lips were sealed and my hands were tied already. These women have already served their rigorous jail terms for being a widow and for being a woman. Although it's not as harsh for widows right now, I still see various forms of oppression of widows in Indian/Sri Lankan cultures. My mother was a young widow (and she's a Hindu) and I remember she being victimised once by one of her own friends who thought it was not good for her daughter to see my mum's face as the first thing after she came of age. I also remember how one of my aunts was told not to stand infront of the wedding altar of her own daughter, just cos she is a widow and it's considered a bad omen. There is another young lady we know who's supposedly doomed for life cos she became a very young widow and so nobody even thinks she should remarry! Why are women punished this way when widowed men can go about doing anything and everything in life? Are these women supposed to be dead too just 'cos their men died? How blind and ignorant are we to go on like this even in the 21st century? Is being a widow such a terrible curse or is being a woman something to be guilty of? I think sheer ignorance is the issue here, nothing else. I find it revolting that widowed women are still being treated as cursed women in this modern era. No matter how much you say that the times have changed, the attitude certainly hasn't.