Water: A Novel

I love this author and this book, albeit from a movie screenplay, doesn't fail. It is a great story that holds your interest straight through until the last page. I guess that I should not reveal the ending.The loss of childhood innocence and the helpless existence of pre-Ghandian India for widows no matter the age, creates the background for this novel. You can try all you want but there is no way to identify with the main character even though personally I am a widow.It astounds me throughout the reading that some women even could adapt to this ashram and it's grotesque "leader" but without a doubt this is what happens in many places of the world, even today.Another great read from a favorite author.The One Eyed Turtle

I saw Deepa Mehta’s movie by the same title, years ago. I found it to be a deeply moving film. I loved the book, which is very close to the movie, just as much. The storyline is interesting but also troubling, and the characters represent all that is good, and all that is bad, in humans. The book also offers a fascinating and horrifying glimpse into India’s history and culture.

What an incredible look into a world I know little about. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see how women and girls have been treated in the name of religion or tradition. In this book we follow Chuyia's story from child bride to her escape/liberation from the Ashram she was relegated to after her husbands death. Like I said, this is not for the faint of heart, it is horrific and gut wrenching.

Excellent read. Gives quite an eye opener as to what happens to young girls where parents marry their daughters off for a dowry to older well off men.....who then die. Wow!!

Well made worth every penny!!! LOVE IT.

A wonderful look into a culture and its traditions. Warmly written, with colorful depictions of life.

Read for book club! Interesting!

Everyone should read this story. It's heartbreaking, yet uplifting. A well written book that tells the story of a child bride.

Loved every minute of this novel. I was looking for a window into a different culture. This was perfect. Completely stands on its own apart from the movie.

Everything was good

This is a shocking novel dealing with the plight of widows in Brahmin culture, exemplified by the child Chuyia who is married to a middle-aged widower at the age of six, becomes a widow at eight and is then dumped into a dilapidated ashram to spend the rest of her life in poverty, misery and perpetual mourning for the husband she never knew.Due to bad Karma accumulated during a previous sinful life a widow is responsible for the death of her husband and can only atone for this by being disowned by her family and in-laws, shaving her head, living at near-starvation level, wrapping herself in a piece of (unstitched, of course !) white cloth, wearing no ornaments, sleeping on the floor, begging, ceasing to exist as a person, not even thinking of remarriage, regretting her continued existence and remaining celibate (which doesn't stop the head-widow in the ashram from forcing the prettier widows into prostitution). The saddest thing is that there seems to be no female solidarity in that society whatsoever, not even among the widows themselves.The child Chuyia enters the ashram without any preconceived notions and her innocent questions reveal the absurdity of the tradition, as when she asks : 'Where is the house for the men widows ?' and the women are aghast at the thought that a fate as horrible as theirs should befall a man.Widowers, of course, are in no way responsible for the death of their wives, and old men may happily marry young children, as the holy texts say that Brahmins can sleep with whomever they want (including sinful, inauspicious and polluted widows) and the women they sleep with are blessed. Didn't Krishna marry 8.000 women and take up with any of the milkmaids that took his fleeting fancy ?Unfortunately, Bapsi Sidhwa's writing is not up to her usual standard, maybe because she wrote the novel based on a film or maybe because of deadline pressure.The love story between Kalyani and Narayan is contrived and melodramatic.

I highly recommend reading this book. I found it very compelling and I was difficult to put the book down. I finished this in 1 day.

An amazing book. Thanks