Arts & Entertainment

Bridging Cultures

Raised by her Jewish father, a child of divorce repairs
relationship with her Indian mother.

Naomi Pfefferman

sporadically. Our time together was painful
and always haunted by my choice"
Jewish Journal of Greater L.A.
In Shooting Water, Saltzman — who
appeared
at last year's Jewish Book Fair
evyani Saltzman sat frozen over
in Ann Arbor —says her decision, in
her math homework as her
fact, haunted every aspect of her life. She
parents screamed at each other
recounts feeling torn between two people
one evening at the Cannes Film Festival
and two cultures, belonging nowhere;
in 1992.
Her mother, the Indian-born filmmaker repressing her anxieties by burying herself
in her studies, only to suffer a depressive
Deepa Mehta, had come to Cannes to pre-
breakdown at Oxford University; quar-
miere her first feature, Sam & Me, about
the unlikely relationship between an elder- reling with her mother, who traveled
extensively to make controversial, feminist
ly Jew and his Indian caregiver. Devyani's
films, and reconciling on the set of Mehta's
father, Canadian-Jewish producer Paul
2006 film Water (a Canadian Oscar sub-
Saltzman, had joined her to celebrate.
mission for Best Foreign Film).
Instead, their own relationship unrav-
The book also describes
eled that evening in what
Saltzman's Ukrainian-Jewish bub-
was to be the last fight
SHOOT ING bie, who became a Communist
(and, essentially, the last
WATE
after Bolsheviks saved her from a
day) of their marriage.
pogrom, and how young Devyani
When the argument
DEVYAN 1
SALTZNI AN
celebrated both Passover and the
subsided, they turned
Hindu New Year before her par-
to 11-year-old Devyani
ents divorced.
and asked her to choose
"Filmmaking was the common
with whom she wanted to
culture my parents raised me in,
live. A few minutes later,
beyond being Jewish or Indian,"
the stunned girl left the
the quietly intense author said
rented French apartment,
in a phone interview from her
holding her father's hand.
Toronto apartment.
"With a child's instincts,
But after the divorce, she said, her
it felt only natural to choose him over
mother remained bitter that Saltzman
my mother;' the now 27-year-old author
had decided to live with her father. When
explains in Shooting Water: A Memoir of
Saltzman had a problem, Mehta some-
Second Chances, Family and Filmmaking
times angrily suggested that she call her
(Newmarket Press; $23.95). "I felt safe
father, since she had chosen him. Or she
with him, while my mother's pain and
seemed inaccessible while reading scripts
anger sometimes scared me.
or chain-smoking Rothmans cigarettes.
"The court decreed I could choose to
When Mehta asked her to work in the
live with whom I wished, and I spent the
camera department on Water in 1999,
following eight years visiting my mother

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Saltzman seized the opportu-
Author Devyani Saltzman with her mother, director
nity.
Deepa Mehta: "I no longer feel trapped by two cul-
"The three months of produc- tures; I feel enriched," says Saltzman. "I'd like to
tion would have been the most
think that's the future for humanity, rising above
time we had spent together in
the petty differences of religion, race and national-
eight years, and I viewed it as
ity. A collection of global souls."
our second chance together;'
Saltzman said. That December,
the then 19-year-old Saltzman arrived on
phoned with death threats. (When
Saltzman once picked up the phone, a
location in Benares, India, a holy city on
voice hissed that Mehta was a "whore" and
the Ganges River, where political strife
that she had better leave town.)
helped bring her closer to her mother.
The movie was put on hold for five
Hindu fundamentalists in Benares were
already wary of Mehta. In 1996, extremists
years until Mehta received funding — and
had attacked theaters showing her film
permission — to finish the project in
Fire, about lesbian sisters-in-law trapped in Sri Lanka. Because of the fear of Hindu
extremists in that country, the set's loca-
oppressive, arranged marriages. They were
tion remained secret, and the director had
equally suspicious that Water — about
no guarantees she would be able to finish
Hindu widows forced into poverty to atone
her film.
for their spouses' deaths — might vilify
In Sri Lanka, Saltzman cared for Mehta
their faith.
when she fell ill and told her mother how
Saltzman helped ensure accuracy by
proud she was of her socially conscious
visiting such widows. As her mother
movie. By the end of the shoot, her mother
prepared to shoot on cremation grounds
had forgiven her for the choice she had
that descended into the Ganges, Saltzman
descended a staircase leading to a widows' made long ago at Cannes.
The experience also gave Saltzman the
ashram in the cellar of a hotel.
idea for her first book, Shooting Water.
In the freezing, dust-filled room, she
"But I didn't want to write just an Oprah-
met elderly women who wore filthy saris
and subsisted on one meager meal per day. esque, growing up, teary thing," she said. "I
tried to express myself by balancing cine-
She learned that even child-widows could
be forced into such an existence (although ma and politics with the personal journey"
Even so, the memoir proved cathartic
child marriage is now illegal).
for both mother and daughter. "As I read
"I was shocked but proud that my
her book, I alternately smile and feel
mother's film would help expose this way
perturbed:' Mehta wrote in the memoir's
of life," Saltzman said.
afterward. "Perturbed by her pain —
Yet the production wasn't to be — at
because as parents we let her down. Smile,
least, in Benares. The government shut
because her honesty and courage made
down the shoot after protesters rioted,
this redemption possible'
burned her mother in effigy and tele-

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