Movie ‘Water’ by Deepa Mehta is being released in India on Feb 23, 2007. I was unaware of this fact because I had seen it in August, 06 at Chicago. This movie’s shooting was stalled in Banaras by Hindu fundamentalists and thus Mehta had to shift her location to Sri Lanka.

I see no reasonas as to why this movie should face wrath from orthodox Hindus! This movie is a grim reminder of the plight of Hindu widows, particularly young widows who have to face isolation and how they have to live a wretched life afterwards. I have great admiration for Hinduism and proud of it, but casteism, untouchability and other taboos are a hinderance to our progress as a society. After seeing Water’ -which depicts the times of 1930s- one feels encouraged that situation has actually improved as far as the fate of Hindu widows is concerned. And there is always a scope for further improvement provided we take critical analysis of the problem.