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Water is a Bollywood film released in the year 2005. This is an Academy Award-nominated Canadian film, which was directed and written by Deepa Mehta. Water is the third and the last film of Deepa Mehta`s trilogy, the other two being Fire and Earth. The story of the film is set in 1938 and deals with the lives of widows at an ashram in Varanasi, India.

Water was premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and it was honoured with the Opening Night Gala. This film was released across Canada in November that year. It was first released in India on March 09, 2007. Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas, John Abraham, and Sarala Kariyawasam play the major roles in this film. Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Waheeda Rehman, Raghuvir Yadav, and Vinay Pathak were in supporting roles. The songs for the film were composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics were written by Sukhwinder Singh.

The story of Water is quiet touching and reflects the Indian society during the British Raj.

The story with Cuhiya, a seven-year old girl being brought to a Hindu widow ashram. She had just lost her husband. There are 14 widows in the ashram. The oldest among them is Madhumati who has a friend Gulabi. She is a pimp. She and Madhumati forces Kalyani (Lisa Ray) into prostitution to support the ashram. Kalyani is fair and beautiful as well as young. Another important character of the film is Shakuntala played by Seema Biswas. She exudes anger and thus others leave her alone.

One day Kalyani and Cuhiya meet Narayan who is a Gandhian. Bothe Kalyani and Narayan are attracted to each other. They decide to marry each other but Madhumati comes to know this and tries to stop it. Kalyani comes out of the ashram to go to Narayan`s house. She finds that it was Narayan`s father who had used her as a prostitute. This deeply hurts Narayan who joins Gandhiji for his mission. When he comes back, he finds Kalyani has engrossed in grief. Cuhuiya in the meanwhile is trapped by Madhumati but is saved by Shakuntala. She gives her to Narayan for a better future.

The pain in the life of Kalyani, Cuhiya and Narayan has been depicted by with ease by Lisa Ray, Sarala and John Abraham. The luminous life, Deepa Mehta has portrayed the superstitions, the rituals and other details in an excellent way. The love story is simple and keeps the audience engaged. This is the main reason for which this film has been appreciated all over the world.

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