The film Water explores the 2000 year old custom where the widow of a Hindu has three choices: 1. burn alive with her dead husband in the funeral fire. 2. lead a life of self-denial, or, 3. if the family permits, marry her husband’s younger brother.

Water is set in 1938 during Gandhi's rise to power and told through the eyes of an eight year old girl, who married some years earlier to a man she has never met, now finds herself a widow.

The rational is that a woman is half her husband, so when the man dies the widow is only half a woman. She is shunted off to a house for widows and dressed in white so that she is recognisable as a widow to the rest of the community. She is treated as a member of the lowest Hindu caste, an untouchable - even her shadow is enough to pollute another human being. To remarry or have sex is the worst sin yet the widows are used as prostitutes by the upper classes, in part because widows have to rely upon begging for their existence.

At a prayer meeting Chuyia the eight year old poses the question: "Where is the house for men widows?" The other widows vilify her and reject her question out of hand, and hence maintain their world view.

Kalyani a beautiful young widow falls in love with a Gandhi supporter who offers to marry her. When the other widows find out they curse her and lock her in her room. Once again when one of them is given the opportunity to free herself from her conditioning and lead a better life the other widows fight to maintain their model of the world. It shows how when we make progress towards what is true for us then friends, family and society may sanction us and try to put us back in the cage. When others try to improve their life then we may do the same. However it is only our childhood conditioning and lack of awareness that keeps us in the cage.

In the course Zen and the Art of Living we use a 7 step goal setting model - the SUCCESS model. Step 5 is the ecology check: "Is there any part of you or anyone in your life who may object to you achieving your desired outcome? If so then you need to deal with this part in order for you to achieve your outcome"

When Kalyani finally leaves the house of widows the head widow warns her that she will never be able to return. Once again covert or overt threats are sometimes used to prevent us from moving forwards in life. But she leaves. However when Kalyani discovers that the father of her fiancé is a client that she has prostituted herself to then she commits suicide. The main income source for the widows having been lost then eight year old Chuyia is forced to become her successor...

Even though a law was passed in 1938 that allowed widows to remarry - in 2001 there were still thirty four million widows living according to a 2000 year old Hindu tradition.

Sometimes it can take a lot of awareness to even begin to see our conditioning and then tremendous courage to step outside of it. If you were given the opportunity to free yourself from your conditioning would you see the opportunity and would you take it?

And on a parting note, it can be easy to see that someone else is living in a cage but can we see our own?

If you want to learn more about how to master your life then feel free to have a look at www.abbyeagle.com.

Abby Eagle 30/05/2007