Its a shame how India could not send Water to the Oscars.... No matter how good Rang De Basanti was, Water was a sure-fire winner and Canada struck the gold...

Water is a look at widows in India. It is a very deeply touching movie, but it is also very disturbing, brutal and menacing in its core. The film is not for children at all and is not for the faint hearted. A confident ending to a miraculous trilogy, Deepa Metha can easily secure herself in the ranks of Mira Nair, Shekhar Kapoor, Satyajit Ray, and Ashutosh Gowarikar as one of India's most internationally acclaimed and celebrated directors in history!

The performances by the little girl, Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas, and Kulbhushan Karabanda are magnificent and moving. Seema Biswas especially captures the burden and difficulty of the life lived by widows in India. John Abraham is an absolute surprise! After his lackluster performances in Dhoom and Taxi No. 9211, he amazed me with such a subtle and elevated performance as a student of Gandhi.

Bottom Line: Not for kids, Water is a film that has gone through major obstacles, but the final product is a refined renewed and awe-striking epic even grander than that of Taare Zameen Par for one Huge reason:

It is a film that takes importance to raw self-realization over dramatic representation....