Curated for Pride Library, University of Western Ontorio, Canada
Copyright Sridhar Rangayan, 2009
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CREDITS
Title: Water
Year: 2005
Language: Hindi and English
Subtitles: English
Genre: Feature / Canada
Director: Deepa Mehta
SYNOPSIS
Widows have a very low social status in the Hindu system and their sight considered an ill-omen. Sometimes family members abandon widows in holy cities like Varanasi or Allahabad. In these cities, widows are compelled to live together in small ashrams. With little food, clothing, shelter and almost certainly no love, these widows lead despair- filled lives with their days consumed by chanting of Hindu religious hymns.
Water tells the tragic story of a child widow Chuiya (Sarala) brought to the widows ashram in Varanasi by her father, her beautiful friend in the ashram Kalyani (Lisa Ray) and Kalyani's admirer Narayan (John Abraham).
QUEER NOTES
Gulabi is a sly, heartless eunuch who often visits the widow's 'ashram' (abode), bringing opium to the head widow Madhumati and also ferries the widows to customers in the darkness. The ferocious Madhumati secretly traffics the widows, against their will, to sustain the ashram as well as feed her opium addiction. Gulabi not only takes Kalyani to Narayan's father one night, but also in one of the most poignant scenes in the film takes the unsuspecting young child Chuiya to Narayan's father. 22
ACTOR/S IN QUEER ROLE
Raghuvir Yadav as Gulabi (eunuch)
LINKS
Imdb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0088335/
Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(2005_film)
queer portrayals in Indian films