Be Nice!

We saw this movie ‘Water’ by Deepa Mehta yesterday. It’s one of those typical artsy films that will linger with you for a long time. This film is about the plight of a group of widows who live together in Varanasi, India. It shows how the widows were treated by our society during the pre independence period. This movie ends with a caption that there are still many millions of widows in India who are treated differently.

I don’t think the current situation is as bad as how it is shown in the film. But I agree with the fact that widows still are treated differently by our society. One place where you can glaringly see this disparity is in our temples – our highest place of worship. You can also see how differently they are treated in religious ceremonies, occasions, gatherings etc… They are still being considered bad luck. Thank god (should I?) that we have at least got away with dressing them in white saris.

The most interesting fact about the movie was that the movie was met with severe protest in many parts of India owing to the fact that it was an anti - Hindu movie. Anybody who sees this movie would agree that it wasn’t the intention of the movie to portray Hinduism in a bad sense. It was just saying the truth. Sometimes truth hurts.

As far as I am concerned, all it was trying to convey was a fact that humans should go by what their conscience says and not blindly by how religions preach. I totally agree with the message of the movie. How can we call ourselves cultured and developed if we still adhere to such abominable practices?