Shooting Water (Book Review I wrote)

Below is a book review I wrote for Hyphen Magazine

Read the book, see the movie it references!

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Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family and Filmmaking

a book by DEVYANI SALTZMAN

Coming of age is never easy. Especially when your life brings you up close and personal with the sharp edges between two parents, cultures and religions. In Shooting Water, Saltzman writes with a rawness that will make you embarrassed for her and then humbled by how honestly she explores and grows from her insecurities. The memoir begins in 1999 when Saltzman decides to accompany her mother, filmmaker Deepa Mehta, to the holy Indian city of Varanasi to assist with the production of Mehta's controversial film Water, about the plight of widows in colonial India. The planned three-month shoot was going to be the longest time Saltzman spent with her mother since her parents' divorce when she was 11, when Saltzman chose to live with her father-a Jewish Canadian photographer. Instead, Hindu fundamentalists shut down the movie one week into production. The subsequent five-year struggle to produce Water is the backdrop for Saltzman's multi-layered narrative, which chronicles her relationship with her mother with honesty and clarity. In the meantime, Saltzman falls in love, hits the crash of heartbreak, and goes to Oxford. Four years later, Saltzman rejoins the film crew in Sri Lanka as the film's still photographer. Saltzman's photographic eye serves her well. She writes her memoir eloquently, translating her journey into adulthood with a memorable, poetic and political lens. -Kirthi Nath

The Pond

Her name was Girijha. When she was a child of five, the sunsets would be most dramatic. There were never other dramatic sunsets. The sky bled loudly. Time existed only as a way for her to express her personality. Hop scotch squares drawn with the colors blue, yellow and green. Sea shells as dice. With death, she did not die, only her personality.

This to that take it
in a splat.
Did I ever tell you about the pond?

Richly.

His voice sounded different to his sister. Does it, are you sure, what is different about it. Was she hearing the minute latitude of change? In five years this may be how his voice ends up, how exciting if she hears it from the beginning. The very beginning. This will be a very difficult thing to keep track of, I hope you understand this before you start investing so much attention. And plus, it might all be a hoax.

What a way.

How is he related to Girijha? He is not like the moon is not round.

On the pond
Me you and mildew
Farting

In the pond
It seemed so clear, so blue
Haunting

I don’t want to be there for you anymore.

On the forth day it started to disappear.

We all wanted to be strong.


-1999