WIDOW WOES: Lisa Ray and John Abraham in the film Water

In a religiously delicate atmosphere, pock-marked by fatwas and bans, certain questions need to be asked: Will Sunny Deol playing a patriotic Pak hero in the new film Kaafila go down well with everybody on both sides of the border? When a world leader like the Pope has not been whole-heartedly ‘forgiven’ despite a personal papal apology, will an insignificant speck on the world stage like Sunny Deol be forgiven for having acted in a film called Gadar? Will the ban on him and his movies be lifted in Pakistan and certain Muslim countries and Pakistani-owned shops?

If the green wave has to answer that, we’ll soon have to keep tabs on the saffron wavers too on this side of the border. A Deepa Mehta film called Water, on the heartwrenching story of child widows in Benaras, was halted by fundamentalists a few years ago. Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das famously shaved their heads before the entire unit was booed out of Benaras for wanting to film the insensitive side of Hinduism.

Akshay Kumar was to have played the idealistic Gandhi-believer, a hero with a conscience, a role that has now gone to lucky actor John Abraham. Lucky, because Water is making waves in Canada and in the US at the box office and has come at the right time in John’s career. The film has aroused enough interest in him for agents based in Hollywood to seriously start looking for good assignments for John out there. In fact, that’s where he is right now, exploring a new world as an actor.

Deepa Mehta, who had no intentions of bowing down to freedom-curbing fundamentalists, played her cards well. She silently changed the entire cast and venue, so that nobody would get wind of her plans. She took on board John Abraham (a relative newcomer then) and Lisa Ray (who’s not really under scrutiny in Bollywood) and recreated Benaras in Sri Lanka! Nobody’s the wiser for it — watch the film and you wouldn’t be able to tell that the backdrop is not a part of India.

I’ve seen the film at a quiet trial show in Mumbai, even if Water is making a lot of noise in the West. It’s a taut, sensitive film where Lisa Ray and her den of child widows reach out and touch your heart. John, the dude from Bandra, has gone staid in a white dhoti and specs. He plays the symbol of hope with natural charm and a certain believable sincerity.

But this is not a review of the film Water. The uneasy undercurrent here is: once the same fundamentalists who booted out the film unit get a whiff that Water has been made after all, and is all set to be released in India, will they do a tandav again?

Yes, the world of child widows is no Disneyland. The story that Deepa tells in Water is definitely not the best PR for the religion. But like Rituparno Ghosh’s Antar Mahal told the seamy story of a decadent zamindar, Water is set in a dark, pre-Partition period and is a stark narration of the truth as it prevailed then. Hopefully, the story of child widows has changed since then in Benaras.

The question is, will this be seen as fiction based in the past, or will fundamentalists see it as Hindu-bashing? Will the freedom to make a film or create any work of art prevail, or in these religiously delicate times will Water draw a bucketful of backlash?

Ponder on this while we look at what Sanjay Dutt is up to. Dad Sunil Dutt had been all set to move into his large, dream apartment where his daughters stayed in the floors below and his star son would be next door. Dutt used to smile in anticipation, “Perhaps I’ll get to see some of the young things that will spill out of my son’s house next door’. But he would also turn pensive and say, ‘It’s too good to be true, I’ve never had such unstinted happiness”. He didn’t, he died before he could move in.

The same is now being said about troubled son Sanjay Dutt (even if most of his problems are of his own making). When he has just delivered his career’s biggest blockbuster, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, and has been instrumental in bringing Gandhi alive today (even five-year-olds are looking at currency notes and breaking into a happy smile on recognising Gandhi), it’s a paradox that Sanjay Dutt stands trial for violence against the state.

While he awaits the verdict on the TADA case against him, apart from cancelling shoots and generally partying with close friends, guess what else Sanju has been doing? Dutt swaggered into a Bandra parlour to have his tattoo touched up — he has a snake on his arm and a Shiva linga on his back!

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International