Romeo and Juliet and the romantic politics of Deepa Mehta's Water

Abstract

A movie that stirred controversy, riots, set-burning, and death threats, Deepa Mehta's Water can be cited in many political contexts. By employing a less tragic variation of Romeo and Juliet as her dramatic structure and by locating her film during the British Raj, Mehta links romantic idealism to the historical journey towards national self-fulfillment. With Shakespeare as an intertextual ally, Water also depicts the oppression of windows, dramatically protesting against a social denial of love in present day India.