Water By Deepa Mehta

1754 Words8 Pages

17/PELA/035
Exploitation of subaltern child widow in Deepa Mehta’s film Water
The acclaimed diasporic filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s woman-centred trilogy Fire, Earth and Water have a common bind (religion). Water remains a powerful indictment of male hegemony in Hinduism. The use of a child widow as a subaltern in the film highlights the need for a revolution within the Hindu culture and its treatment of women and children. When children become victims, society realises its disintegration sooner. Deepa Mehta becomes the voice of the subaltern widows and calls for a rapid change in the Hindu culture. This essay focusses on the various double standards that Hindu culture advocates in assigning widows as subalterns in Deepa Mehta’s film Water. The …show more content…

His father encourages him to keep her as his mistress. This projects the so called high class socially respected Brahmins as exploitators of gendered subalterns. Narayan-Kalyani relationship suffers a tragic end. Narayan on learning that his father is responsible for the ruin of Kalyani, shames and rejects him affirming that Ram has condemned those Brahmins who interpret the scriptures for their own selfish ends and leaves Benaras to follow Gandhi. Losing her income from Kalyani’s sexuality, Madhumati targets Chuyia as a new source of income. She is then sexually abused by Narayan’s father. The chain of exploitation and abuse continues in the …show more content…

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