Water (Hindi: जल, romanized: Jal) is a 2005 drama film written and directed by Deepa Mehta, with screenplay by Anurag Kashyap.

Water is a dark introspect into the tales of rural Indian widows in the 1940s and covers controversial subjects such as child marriage, misogyny and ostracism.

Featured songs for the film were composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Sukhwinder Singh and Raqeeb Alam.

In 2008, inspired by the film, Dilip Mehta directed a documentary, The Forgotten Woman about widows in India.

In keeping with traditions of widowhood, she is dressed in a white sari, her head is shaven and she is left in an ashram, to spend the rest of her life in renunciation.

There are fourteen women who live in the dilapidated house, sent there to expiate bad karma, as well as to relieve their families of the financial and emotional burdens of caring for widows.

The two also have a side business: Gulabi helps Madhumati prostitute Kalyani, a beautiful young widow, by ferrying her across the Ganges to customers.

Enraged at losing a source of income and afraid of the social disgrace, Madhumati locks Kalyani up.

Much to everyone's surprise, the God-fearing Shakuntala lets Kalyani out to go meet Narayan, who ferries her across the river to take her to his home.

The site's consensus is that "this compassionate work of social criticism is also luminous, due to both its lyrical imagery and cast".

[14] The film received high praise from Kevin Thomas, writing in the Los Angeles Times: For all her impassioned commitment as a filmmaker, Mehta never preaches but instead tells a story of intertwining strands in a wholly compelling manner.

Mehta sees her people in the round, entrapped and blinded by a cruel and outmoded custom dictated by ancient religious texts but sustained more often by a family's desire to relieve itself of the economic burden of supporting widows.

[15] Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times selected Water as NYT Critics' Pick, calling it "exquisite": "Serene on the surface yet roiling underneath, the film neatly parallels the plight of widows under Hindu fundamentalism to that of India under British colonialism".

[17] Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer also praises Mehta's work on the trilogy saying that "profound, passionate and overflowing with incomparable beauty, Water, like the prior two films in director Deepa Mehta's "Elements" trilogy, celebrates the lives of women who resist marginalisation by Indian society".

[19] Mehta had originally intended to direct Water in February 2000, with the actors Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das and Akshay Kumar.

[23] The resulting tensions and economic setbacks led to several years of struggle as Mehta was eventually forced to film Water in Sri Lanka, rather than in India.