Title: Mehta's source
of Water upsets Jaitley
Author: Onkar Singh
in New Delhi
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: March 14, 2000
The Union ministry for
information and broadcasting that permitted Deepa Mehta to go ahead with
shooting her controversial film Water in India is now reconsidering its
decision.
Sources said that Minister
of State for Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley is upset that Mehta
"did not tell the whole truth" while seeking official clearance.
Reports in the media
had said that Mehta had not come completely clean with her claims. Accordingly,
she had borrowed heavily from the English translation of Sunil Gangopadhyay's
award-winning masterpiece Shei Samati.
What is said to have
irked the minister even more is the fact that Mehta, despite exposures
by leading national dailies of plagiarism in her screenplay, claimed originality
on all counts.
"She did not have the
decency to acknowledge that she had borrowed. Weeks after the controversy
broke out over the film, Mehta addressed a number of press conferences
but not once did she mention the name of Gandgopadhayay. It was only when
the issue was picked up by newspapers that she admitted that she had been
'inspired' by the book," said a woman technician who had been hired for
Water.
"She is still trying
to convince the people that she is right and others are wrong. What about
the disparaging comments about the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi
in the script?" she asked.
A producer who has been
associated with Mehta on her previous two ventures, Fire and Earth, feels
that she should wind up and return to Canada.
"After what I have read
in the papers I feel Water is history now. There is no way she can make
this film after lifting from an award-winning book and not acknowledging
the source. Enough is enough, she should forget about the film once and
for all," he said.
"The only way out for
her," he continued, "is to reach an agreement with the author, the publishers
and then try to make her film. Otherwise I do not see her shooting it,
even in September."
Sources said Gangopadhyay
would visit Delhi shortly to take up the matter with Jaitley personally.
He is also likely to meet newsmen and his translator Aruna Chakaravarty
if Mehta still refuses to acknowledge her source.
Though some feel that
this is asking too much of Mehta, others hold that she has no other way
to complete the film.
Neither Jaitley nor Mehta
was available for comments.