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Shooting Water: A Mother-Daughter
Journey and the Making of a Film
Even though the book is written in first person, it tells a much larger story. The narrative has a rhythm that flows like an intricately crafted tapestry, marking the highs and lows of shooting a film until its final realisation in Sri Lanka. The film was shot under intense secrecy and a pseudonym. This subterfuge was necessitated by the fusillade that fundamentalists had ignited against its content. From the moment the idea was conceived, it has been dogged by controversy, which got a life of its own, quite apart from the film itself. This book is significant in the context of all the hyperboles that accompanied the making of Water and untangles the web of rumours that surround it. This is indeed a story that needed to be told. As Devyani said in an interview: "There was never a full and truthful account of what happened to my mother’s beautiful film in either the Indian or the western media, just random sound bytes. I wanted the full story out there, both as a journalist and as a daughter." The book is peppered with insightful vignette of the behind-the-scene hungama, along with the author’s own rites of passage. To call this an autobiography would be to limit its scope and scale. It works on many parallel levels of complex relationships, Indian politics and behind-the-scenes film-making.
In 1999, at the age of 19, Devyani accompanied her mother to Varanasi for shooting the final part of her trilogy (Water, after Fire and Earth). Recruited as the third assistant cameraperson in the film unit, by the time the film is made in Sri Lanka (five years later), she has become a "still photographer". The book is an account of this odyssey that spans three continents. A major chunk of the story deals with the troubled relationship between the mother and the daughter. When Devyani was 11, her parents divorced and she had to choose with whom she would live. Opting for her father created a painful schism in the mother-daughter relationship, which is brilliantly constructed without resorting to sentimentality. Nothing is indulgently peddled. The narrative does not create heroes or villains, but reveals an emotional history of estrangement and the struggle of Deepa and her daughter to retrieve their fractured relationships. Shooting Water is a powerful document of inter-personal relationship that examines the nature of rupture and the capacity of human beings to reach out and rework relationships through love. The book is also an attempt by the author to negotiate with two cultures (Indian and Canadian) two religions (Judaism and Hinduism) and two traditions in an attempt to locate the self-belonging, as she says "to both and to neither at once". Water could be a mother and daughter’s second chance. My fascination with the book also has to do with the fact that Devyani Saltzman and Deepa Mehta are part of my own history and memory. Deepa and I grew up together in Amritsar and I have known Devyani since the day she was born and have watched her blossom into a sensitive and caring adult. Shooting Water must be one of the most sensational debut works of the year. From the moment you read the first chapter describing a train journey from New- Delhi to Varanasi, images leap out and chase one another in a gripping and pictorial language. The events that aborted the making of the film have been described in the horrific reality. The script is a tender and compassionate account of the oppression of the Hindu widows layered by a love story between a young widow and a scion of a rich Bengali family. The film ends on a note of optimism, bringing in the Freedom Movement and the impact of Mahatma Gandhi on Indian society. However, a rampaging mob in the 1999, without any firm idea about the contents of the film, ran amok on the streets of Varanasi, burning sets and threatening the cast and crew. The film was seen as a hazard to Indian morality. Devyani speaks in a voice that is enticingly intimate, yet rips open the wounds. Devyani has shown the maturity to elevate deep emotions into a universal statement. The book is also a tribute to the indomitable determination and passion of Deepa Mehta, who completed the film against all odds. It is the capacity to capture moments that make the book a winner. It’s free from decorative sentences and romanticised posturing, a must read for everyone interested in evolving relationships, dramatically framed against the history of Indian cinema. |
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