Water, a 2006 film written and directed by Deepa Mehta, is a touching story about lives of Hindu widows who are outcasts by their society shackled by religion and tradition.
The story, set in 1938 in a small "holy" town by the river, tells poignant tales of women whose lives were forever imprisoned by an old religious tradition: when one's husband dies, one lives out the rest of her life, half-dead.
In colonial India around 1938, child marriages were prevalent in society. Many children married men old enough to be their fathers, if not grandfathers. Some of these children ended up as widows before they knew what marriage meant, or, ironically, before they met their husbands.
All widows were (and are still in parts of India) confined to Ashrams, sanctuary homes for widows. Whether they were children, girls, women, or seniors, these women lived on the fringe of society. They were forbidden to eat most kinds of food. They wore only white, with their locks of hair shaved off. They lived below poverty. As "untouchables", they had to bare the rest of their lives in seclusion and self-exile, in order to find supposedly self-liberation, the highest spiritual state for Hinduism.
However, such religious laws could not chain the human heart, its longings to live, to love, and to be free.
The protagonist, a little girl named Chuyia, married and widowed by the age of eight, attempted to escape but didn't know where to go. She learned and witnessed her restricted life as a widow through lives of other widows who lived day-by-day as shadowy ghosts dreaming of the world outside. She befriended a beautiful young widow who became an outcast at nine years old, who was forced to work as a prostitute to support living expenses of other widows, and who in the end could only escape her terrible circumstances in death. She also witnessed another widow's strong faith, that all things had reason and hope.
It was a story of stories.
Stories which explored the human heart, will, and soul.
It was a story of hidden anguish and despair.
It was a story of love.
It was a story of lost lives and dreams.
It was a story to speak up for ones who had no voice.
It was a story against traditional beliefs.
It was a story about freedom and hope.
It was a story about the unbreakable human spirit.
A magnificent triumph!
