The untouchable

Do you know what changed in that short time that made "Water" such a problem to shoot?

Absolutely. It was the rise of fundamentalism. The BJP got into power, and it was the days of history books being rewritten and culture being redefined, people who were not Hindus being persecuted. Paintings by MF Hussein, who is one of our preeminent artists, being burned because Saraswati, one of the Indian goddesses he had depicted, wasn't fully clothed. It was the flexing of muscles of Hindu extremists, the RSS in particular, and its affiliates. They saw themselves, and they continue to see themselves, as the protectors of Hinduism. What doesn't fit in with their sense of what is Hinduism -- and not only Hinduism, but Indian culture as defined by them -- should be punished. And I think "Water" was a casualty of those times.

Many of the charges against the film that were circulating in the press were false, and a lot of the protesters didn't even know what it was about before they started protesting. Even after the film was shut down, prostitutes were protesting in the street because they thought the film was about prostitution.

That was very strange! I arrived in Calcutta, and somebody said there's a huge protest against what is happening with "Water." And I said, Really, in Calcutta? And they said, Yes, traffic had been stopped because there were all these sex workers protesting. And I said, Why are they protesting? [laughs] Everyone had their own take on what "Water" was about; somebody said it was a relationship between a Brahmin and an untouchable girl that was so offensive. So somebody said it was caste, and somebody said it was anti-Gandhi, and that's why it was unacceptable. There were so many versions of the script floating around.

But do you think that if people had known what the film was really about, there would have been so much outrage?

No, no, it had nothing to do with what the film was about. You can't make a film in India unless you give it to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. So before we made "Water," we had to submit the script. And they go through it with a fine-toothed comb and scrutinize each word. If there's anything that's derogatory to Indian culture or to Indians, they won't give you permission to shoot that. And it got complete approval. They knew what the script was about, and it was their own cultural arm that was protesting.

The material itself is not terribly controversial.

There's nothing in it! That's why they gave us permission. Not only is it set in 1938, it [widows being sent to ashrams] still happens. So in what way is it controversial?

So this was really about fundamentalism rising.

And maybe on a certain level feeling like they [the RSS] didn't want to say that this was not right that it happens to widows. That I was even questioning the way they are treated, that's not right. So that was definitely a part of their agenda. According to Hinduism, or their interpretation of Hinduism, widows should be ascetics, and should atone for the sins that caused the death of their husbands by becoming ascetics, by being marginalized in society, by having their hair shaved and by being desexualized, by becoming pariahs in society. And they knew that the script in fact questioned that, because that is the very nucleus of "Water," is a questioning of treating people according to the laws of manner, which are outdated, I think, and are really unfair to widows. So they didn't like that, [questioning] that aspect of Hinduism which believes in women being subjugated, women being oppressed.

It surprised me to learn that many of the film's protesters were women, who themselves might be tossed into an ashram one day.

Yes, there were huge groups of women. They had no idea what it was about. They were shaking their rolling pins up in the air and protesting, but they thought that somehow the film was going to be [spiritually] polluting the Ganges. Who knows what people are told? And that's not just true of India; it's true all over the world. You can really incite mobs in the name of religion the way you can't with anything else.

By the time you were ready to shoot in Sri Lanka, many of the actors you ended up with are not what one would call full Indian -- Lisa Ray is half Polish, John Abraham (who plays Kalyani's love interest) is Syrian Christian and Irani, Manorama (who plays the head widow) is half Irish, Sarala is Sinhalese. Did you think about that at all? That the outcome of all that protesting and sabotage was not only that you re-created India outside of India, but that your casting constituted a subtle jab at the Hindu right, or the idea of Indian purism?

There's something you must understand. When we were shut down, and we were invited by the government of West Bengal and the government of Madhya Pradesh to make the film there, after we were shut down in Varanasi, they were extremely generous and said we'll give you full protection. They were wonderful. And I was ready to commit to one of them, and then I realized that I had been so badly burned by what had happened and I was still so angry about this experience. We were threatened every day with death threats, effigies being burned, the crew getting obscene calls and our sets being destroyed -- it was horrible. It became about something larger, about the freedom of expression in a democratic country. It stopped being about "Water" and the extremists, it became about the arts and politics. And I thought if I brought my anger onto the script -- for me, it's a very fragile thing, and anger's a very powerful tool. So I promised myself that I would not make "Water" until I stopped being angry. And that took four years. By the time it dissipated, and I looked at the script again, there was no feeling of vindication or wanting to take jabs at anybody.

Next page: "We put the Hindu woman on a pedestal"