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Mehta lacks requisite permissions

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

The shooting of Water, the third in well-known film-maker Deepa Mehta's trilogy, has been stalled in Varanasi essentially because she failed to fulfill various statutory requirements, a senior government official told rediff.com.

Mehta had earlier blamed UP tourism minister Ashok Yadav and Public Works minister Kalraj Misra for putting her film in troubled waters. But documentary evidence now seems to indicate that the film-maker was apparently concealing facts while dealing with the state administration.

The Varanasi administration had, in fact, extended all cooperation and assistance to her, following Yadav's personal instructions to ensure that UP becomes a popular destination for film-makers. Yadav was given to believe that Water was a Deepa Mehta production. Besides, he had received several recommendations for Mehta from well-known film personalities like Shatrughan Sinha, who is now a leader in the ruling BJP.

However, on being informed that Mehta had concealed a vital fact, in that the film was a foreign production which entails a number of permissions and formalities to be completed by the ministry of external affairs, Yadav withdrew his support to the film.

According to the minister, "I simply told the district magistrate to withhold official assistance until it was clearly established that the necessary formalities required for a foreign production to shoot in India were duly complied with by the film-maker."

The Varanasi district magistrate accordingly sent a confidential letter to each of the concerned local officials -- like the chief of the municipal corporation and the police chief -- to hold back whatever co-operation they had decided to extend Mehta.

Officials maintain that while Mehta was blaming the state government for its "non-cooperative" attitude, she herself has failed to furnish the desired documents purported to have been issued by the external affairs ministry. "All that she has is a clearance from the ministry of information and broadcasting, which would have sufficed if it were an Indian production," says a senior official.

Rakesh Manjul, convener of the Northern India Film and Television Forum, who had been accused by Mehta of getting the film stalled, told rediff.com, "I wonder why she is blaming me; in fact, I had agreed to extend all help to her through our forum after we received a formal written request from her production manager Dipa Motwane."

Motwane sought the Northern India Film and Television Forum's assistance on a letter head of the Dehi-based Vast Galaxies Investments Ltd, which described her as production manager of Deepa Mehta's film, Water. However while seeking permission from the ministry of information and b roadcasting, she described herself as production manager for an Ontario (Canada) based company, Flagship International Ltd. This eventually spilled the beans. Interestingly, Motwane sought to project Mehta was simply using a foreign crew. Nowhere was it mentioned that the production was, technically, a foreign one.

While Mehta is engaged in this tug-of-war with the government, some cultural organisations in Varanasi have raised much hue and cry over what they term as the "highly objectionable" script and theme of the film. According to Jeetendra of Sanskar Bharti, an organisation that is an offshoot of the RSS, "We have been given to believe that Deepa Mehta seeks to show that the widows in Varanasi's traditional widow homes become recluses and often get sexually involved with even close relatives or others; this is just not done and goes against the very ethos and traditions of this ancient city."

Another local organisation has accused Mehta of deliberately trying to spark off a controversy, so that her film gets enough publicity even before it is made. Meanwhile, rediff.com's several attempts to contact Mehta both over the phone and her mobile proved fruitless.

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