Water

The film Water shares the compelling story of widows who have been out casted and rejected from society in the holy city of Varanasi, India. The story follows a young woman who living in the temple for widows, Kalyani, as she falls in love with a man in the highest caste of India.

This film showed many elements of Indian culture. For example I learned about how Indians deal with death and burial. One of the widows a character known as “Auntie” passes away. She repeatedly asks to go outside to die. She did not want to die under the roof of the temple. She wanted to die under the sky. The other widows comply and bring her outside and lay her down. The widows circle around her as “Auntie” has her final moments on earth. As she is dying her final wish is to have some holy water. The youngest widow, Chuyia, is sent to fetch some but is too late and “Auntie” passes away before she could get there. Many of the other widows become angry at Chuyia that she was not able to make it there in time.

Another aspect of death concerning widows is how the dead body will be disposed of. Widows were outcasts and hence believed to have no value. What little money they brought in for things such as prostitution was not wasted on proper burials. If there was not money for a cremation the woman would be burned. In the case of “Auntie” one of the other widows Kalyani gave some money she had been saving so that “Auntie” could have a proper cremation.