SOME MONTHS ago, I got a chance to see Deepa Mehta’s film titled ‘Water’. It is part of the trilogy, ‘Fire’, ‘Earth’ and ‘Water’. The film had made news for two reasons: Deepa courted controversy when ‘Fire’ delved into lesbian relationships; when shooting for ‘Water’ (dealing with the plight of child widows at Benares) began, it invited the wrath of Hindu fundamentalists. It also attracted a law suit from the noted author Sunil Gangopadhyay who claimed that the film was based on his acclaimed novel, ‘Those Days’.

 

‘Water’ is a pale shadow of what it might have been. After shooting was disrupted at Benares (Varanasi), the cast as well as the location was changed. Deepa Mehta shifted the location to Sri Lanka and recruited a new cast. She tried to recreate with plastic success, the ghats of Benares in Sri Lanka but the artificial umbrellas and the ghat props could not deceive anyone who has been to Varanasi.

 

Of course ‘Water’ is not the only film thus affected. Films in recent memory that have run into problems include the recently released ‘Jodhaa Akbar’, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and of course politically-tinged films like ‘Mangal Pandey-The Rising’ and Shyam Benegal’s ‘Netaji, the Forgotten Hero’.

 

The Indian Express has been worrying about a growing tribe of Indians who have a thin skin and flaunt it too; it wonders why we are so quick off the block to take offence? It is an important question to ask ourselves. Its editorial speculates that the reason is India is a democracy and so there is freedom of expression, which people freely exploit. But society is not liberal enough and so the space for tolerance is limited.

 

But perhaps the issue to investigate is not so much the problem as the solution. Yes, India is a democracy but we have a long way to go. We have learnt to enjoy the freedom of expression that the Constitution has given us but perhaps not learnt that others have the same right and hence can think and act differently. Since India is a society, which is several millennia old, it cannot easily shed its norm; it cannot be ushered into a liberalised ambience. While we learn to accept we indeed have a thin skin, perhaps we should also look at solutions that allow various points of view to be expressed in a way that is not openly divisive.

 

Is that possible? Can we become thick-skinned enough to at least let others speak, write and make films of their liking and allow them to live even if we never get to like them? A truly liberal society of course would allow a climate where a lot could be said and then the dissenters would also know how to express their dissent without fear of courting or cultivating unrest. But we are not there as yet.

 

At school, there was a word that we learnt – xenophobia – the fear of all things foreign. In all these years after school, it seems that the word and the world in which we live today have both shrunk and the line between ‘them’ and ‘us’ is often as fragile as glass. Or to put it differently, if you are not with me in my opinion even on the shallowest of matters, you are against me and different from me. 

 

I have neither the time nor the inclination to look for signs of humanity and build on that. I would rather reach for the stone that can smash your window pane or your head, so I can retreat to the privacy of my den, preening myself like a bully. After all, I have rid the world of one who does not think the way I do. Yes, xenophobia is a frightening word, especially when it has shrunk so much that the borders are constantly closing in on us.