Water! by Komal Swaminathan tells the story of Vellaisamy, a homeless wanderer who finds himself in a village known as Athipatti. As Vellaisamy soon comes to learn, this village has long suffered from a terrible water shortage, and it stands in an almost desert-like state. Even the local priest only bathes the idol in the main temple once each month. The play illustrates Vellaisamy’s ambition to solve Athipatti’s problems, despite a lack of assistance from authorities supposedly intended to assist the villagers. On the contrary, the only visit the villagers receive from politicians is one from Naicker, an incumbent seeking re-election in a local office, who attempts to leverage caste-based divisions to garner votes. Vellaisamy’s first attempts to tackle the water shortage involve using a cart to bring water from the nearest source, saving the villagers countless hours walking many miles each day just for potable water. Eventually, he enlists the help of the villagers in his attempt to construct a large canal running through the village to ensure a sustainable water supply for the future. Unfortunately, on the final day of construction, the project was met with disapproval from local and regional authorities who threatened to arrest all villagers involved in planning efforts, in addition to needless violence. Along the way, the audience learns Vellaisamy’s troubled backstory: he has lived life as a fugitive for the murder of Kalamekam, a man who forcibly took his wife as payment for an inherited debt from his father. Via this storyline, the play carefully treats several significant aspects of the Indian Tamil lifestyle: in particular, the caste system; its interactions with politics; the divide between urban and rural lifestyles; and gender roles.

At its core, Water! tells a story of a man rallying the efforts of a village he comes upon to solve a frequent problem and ultimately failing. As previously highlighted, the storyline of the play simultaneously lends itself to a broad intersectionality of lenses through which to view Tamil society. By presenting an unfiltered narrative of rural Tamil lifestyle, the play conveys pervasive social issues with relative ease. A natural following question would be how such a myriad of thematic elements can interact with the central framing of the plot. Complicating this question is the medium of the story itself: the play. Tamil plays and dramatic literature have a relatively brief history compared to more traditional literary modes, but their increasing popularity over the twentieth century bolsters their position as a recognized art form. This paper will argue that at its heart, Water! presents a view of the tension between fate and free will. That the central character can rally the villagers to solve a problem only to be struck down by the authorities poignantly reflects the characters’ fundamental inability to control their own destiny. Additionally, this commentary on social issues – and thus the tension between fate and free will itself – is conveyed effectively because of the medium of the play itself.

Before delving into the different socio-political lenses to analyze the play, it is fruitful to examine how the medium enables such a successful presentation of these issues. At the beginning of the twentieth century, three distinct forms of Tamil play emerged: the music play, the dance play, and the folk play (Raghavan 128). While the first two forms were held in higher literary and artistic regard, the latter offers the most similarity to the forms of drama a contemporary viewer would be accustomed to, in that the folk-play left room for prose dialogue whereas the dance-play and music-play were primarily musically focused (129). “The words [. . .] had no pretensions to literary quality,” but this form encouraged scenes involving “the common man pour[ing] forth his heart in a convincing burst of humour or pathos or irony,” scenes in which “lay the germ of the Tamil play of today” (129). However, these scenes were interspersed with fantastical renditions of classical or mythological works and had little semblance of verisimilitude until “contact with Western literature” (129-130). Today, Tamil drama leverages its capability for realism and empathy to comment on topical socio-political issues: “Drama plays a significant role as a forum for political opinion in Tamil Nadu,” writes Shankar (Shankar 125). In addition to being a driving force in the conversation around Tamil social issues, the play has long been a form with less barrier to entry because of its use of vernacular: “plays meant for acting were written in spoken but not in literary Tamil” (124).

This context offers a new lens through which to view the development of the play. Of course, the emphasis on the burdens and lifestyle of the common person, coupled with the emphatic speeches villagers make throughout the play, align with the origins of the Tamil play overall. However, constructing scripted and believable dialogue remains an element of Western influence. The combination of verisimilitude and the struggles of the common person enable an almost social realist telling of the story. Crucially, the interaction between these elements and the tension between fate and free will also offers another understanding of the play: as opposed to early Tamil folk plays, which offered the chance for unscripted dialogue and focused on the impromptu rhetorical capabilities of the actors, this play is formally and deterministically constructed while still focusing on common people. As a result, the medium itself stresses the lack of control the actors and characters themselves have in the situations they have been assigned.

The first socio-political lens through which we can treat Water! is economic freedom and emancipation. Vellaisamy’s backstory as a young man hurdled by his father’s debt underscores the lack of economic opportunity he has in his adolescence and early adulthood. At one point in the play, news of the murders committed by Vellaisamy arrives at the village and the villagers must decide whether to protect him or turn him into the police for a reward. In the process, Vellaisamy describes the economic conditions his father was forced to endure growing up. “A very rich man” with “a lot of land” named Kalamekam repeatedly offered loans to Vellaisamy’s father (Swaminathan 142). However, because Kalamekam had charged such a high interest rate on the loans, Vellaisamy’s father came to owe him an exorbitant amount, for which eventually his small plots of land were seized (142). Additionally, even with his land seized, Vellaisamy’s father remained in debt, so he was forced to work as a “bonded labourer” (142). This form of debt repayment essentially amounted to indentured servitude, which still did not complete repayment by the time of his death (142). As the son of a bonded labourer, Vellaisamy inherited his father’s debt and was forced to work under the same conditions (142). Eventually, Kalamekam forcibly took his wife “in place of the remaining loan” (142), which ultimately prompted the murders he committed. One significant aspect of Vellaisamy’s story is that he “had no option but to work for” Kalamekam (142). Although the debt was not his own, he falls prey to his father’s debt accumulation. As such, he is unable to control any aspect of his future. The one element of his life remaining under control – his marriage – falls out of his control at the hands of Kalamekam.

In addition to the lack of self-determination pointed to by the lack of economic opportunities mentioned earlier, the effective political disenfranchisement faced by the people of the rural village again amounts to a deterministic situation outside their own control. A key scene in the play occurs when a local politician, Velusami Naicker, visits the village to garner votes for an upcoming election. Contrary to his expectations, Naicker is received with a degree of antagonism on account of the village’s persistent issues that remain unaddressed by the regional government. Naicker attempts to evade this line of questioning out of fear that his image may be damaged, in the process describing Kovalu’s aggression as disrespectful: “‘Show me some respect! Or there will be killing here!’” (148). He also attempts to dismantle Vaithilingam’s arguments against him by labelling them as partisan to his own caste: “‘You are a Reddy. That is why you are setting Naicker against Naicker’” (150). After Naicker’s departure, the villagers discuss the best course of action to take in the upcoming election. Spearheaded by Vaithilingam, they decide to boycott: “‘If we are proud men and our mothers are not whores, not one fellow from this village will cast his vote’” (150). They acknowledge the futility of their own actions: “‘Will the tall tower of the temple fall because a cow butts it? If they don’t have our [. . .] votes, will they lose’” (150). Vaithilingam responds by stating that the action is not meant to produce any instantaneous meaningful change, but rather to “‘show our anger’” (150). Later, when a newspaper reporter comes to the village to investigate the incident, Vaithilingam first accuses him of only publishing trivial matters, such as the colour of actresses’ dresses; or, when they do publish topical matters such as water shortages, they must be relevant only to those who reside in large cities (151-52). Eventually, after a lengthy dialogue regarding the woes of the village, the reporter asks, “‘Is this why you are angry and have boycotted the elections?’”, to which Vaithilingam states, “‘That is all we could do’” (152). Additionally, when asked whether the boycott will incite government action, Vaithilingam answers, “‘We don’t have such illusions. We know the government does not show any regard for such peaceful struggles. These days it responds only if you burn a bus’” (153).

Within this storyline, there are many socio-political implications treated. Crucially, these issues are complicated by the urban-rural divide. In particular, consider Naicker’s incitement of inter-caste conflict. Ataikappan, a village elder, states that the village does not even keep track of caste until candidates from the city come during election season (150). Interestingly, this element of the plot also aligns with recent scholarship on the urban-rural divide regarding wealth distribution. Due to the changing employment structure incentivizing rural-to-urban migration in Tamil Nadu, the latter half of the twentieth century has seen relaxed rigidity of traditional caste-based wealth and land distribution (Sato 41). This urban-rural divide also invalidates the village’s effort to withhold its votes from the upcoming elections: since the village has disproportionately smaller voting power than big cities, there is effectively no way for the villagers to democratically make their voices heard. Even when the villagers withhold their votes, the election itself is unaffected. In aggregate, the storyline surrounding the political turmoil the village suffers tells yet another tale of fate and free will. In some ways, the caste system can be regarded as the height of fate’s triumph over free will: a member of society born into a certain caste often has their occupation and class predetermined. By analyzing the rural attitude toward the caste system, the play offers a glimmer of hope that the characters can circumvent this cycle of fate controlling their lives; however, the urban-rural divide – the very phenomenon enabling relaxation of the caste system – controls their lives by effectively disenfranchising them politically.

Another interesting social angle embedded in the play is that of gender roles. Gender distribution in Water! is highly skewed: only one female character, Sevanthi, appears throughout the entire play. Most of Sevanthi’s actions are relegated to supporting the other characters. This includes serving water and food to the central characters at the beginning of the play. However, a crucial plot point involves Sevanthi’s marriage to Azhagiri, a police officer. Soon before Vellaisamy’s canal can be completed, Azhagiri pays a surprise visit to Sevanthi. Sevanthi upholds the village oath to not reveal Vellaisamy’s whereabouts and attempts to conceal his presence from her husband. When Vellaisamy’s identity is revealed, Azhagiri reluctantly agrees to allow him freedom until the canal’s completion, contingent upon Vellaisamy’s eventual voluntary surrender to the police. However, just before the final boulder can be broken to signal the completion of the canal, the project is halted by a PWD engineer and a crowd of police, including Azhagiri. Critically, Sevanthi voices her opinion when Azhagiri asserts that Vellaisamy must be taken by the police, and her own father tells her to “‘Be quiet,’” and to “‘Let whatever happens happen’” (171). Sevanthi, in opposition to her father’s words, continues to berate Azhagiri for his actions. When threatened with the prospect of divorce, Sevanthi returns her wedding necklace and ends the marriage herself: “‘Now the relationship has been broken. If you have courage in your heart, let us see you take brother Vellaisamy with you’” (171).

Interestingly, Sevanthi withholds marriage to further the cause she believes in. Azhagiri’s status as the village’s son-in-law had been his means of protection within the village; with that status dissolved, he now faces the full force of the angry village. These events distill into marriage being used as an institution to protect men while illustrating that women can attempt to take back control of their lives by leveraging it for their own benefit. Control over marriage has long been considered a tool of the broader patriarchal society used to reinforce caste purity and other social inequalities in areas throughout India. Rao writes that “studies of marriage [. . .] have traditionally emphasized its structural role in [. . .] maintaining exclusionary boundaries of caste/ethnicity” (Rao 412). Within the context of marriage, “women’s agency then remains tied to their caste/class position and the nature of marriage” (412), the latter describing the parameters of the marriage such as whether it is arranged or for love. “Marriage and sexuality are [. . .] used to weaken women’s agency and bargaining power” (413), which underscores the gravity of Sevanthi’s actions. To enhance her own agency, Sevanthi severs the shackles of marriage. However, while Azhagiri cannot catch Vellaisamy, the succeeding and final scenes of the play present a reality as dark as though Azhagiri had taken Vellaisamy into custody. Notably, Sevanthi “passes the days doing coolie work with her father” while remaining “a single woman separated from her husband” (Swaminathan 173). In total, the agency she achieves from ending her marriage fails to exonerate Vellaisamy, and she is forced into menial labour to support her family: she escapes one social issue only to fall prey to a lack of economic self-determination. The interaction between female labour and an attempt to dissolve traditional patriarchal norms has been an object of study for scholars in Tamil literature. Although within the context of a different author, Keshavamurthy writes that “female labour is still the only available means of renouncing the patriarchal ties of caste, family and marriage to achieve a greater sense of self-determination” (Keshavamurthy 125). However, despite these potential positive outcomes, care must be taken to “resist sexual as well as caste and class exploitation” (125). Overall, Sevanthi’s storyline presents viewers with yet another example of ostensible self-determination falling prey to factors beyond the characters’ control – another point in favour of fate in its battle against free will.

Overall, Water! tells a story of the ebbs and flows of hope in a small Tamil Nadu village. The tension between fate and free will represents a sizable portion of the storyline: each time a character tries to control their own destiny, the attempt is met with failure. These attempts at control have been analyzed within the context of three socio-political lenses: economic mobility, political disenfranchisement, and gender roles. The synthesis of traditional Tamil dramatic representations of the common person and more recent verisimilitude taken from Western literature results in a powerfully subversive play that can effectively comment on the aforementioned social issues, thus creating the tension between fate and free will. This reading of the play sheds new light on its highly contrarian qualities. By highlighting several instances of fate defeating delusions of free will, the play subverts a longstanding Indian literary tradition of postcolonial independence and self-determination, underscored by Vellaisamy’s own birth on Indian Independence Day. The previously illustrated social issues work together as elements of fate counteracting attempts at self-determination, and the medium of the Tamil play enables these elements to shine by placing the audience amid day-to-day life.
 

Works Cited :

Keiko, Sato. “Employment Structure and Rural-Urban Migration in a Tamil Nadu Village: Focusing on Differences by Economic Class.” Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 49, no. 1, June 2011,
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/tak/49/1/49_KJ00007183859/_pdf/-char/en.

Keshavmurthy, Kiran. “Scenes of Abjection: Power, Sexuality and Caste in Modern Tamil Literature.” University of California, Berkeley, 2012, https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/stable/26405011?sid=primo&seq=12.

Raghavan, A. Srinivasa. “Tamil Drama.” Indian Literature, vol. 1, no. 2, 1958, pp. 128–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23329303. Accessed 8 May 2023.

Rao, Nitya. “Marriage, Violence, and Choice: Understanding Dalit Women’s Agency in Rural Tamil Nadu.” Gender and Society, vol. 29, no. 3, 2015, pp. 410–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43669978. Accessed 12 Apr. 2023.

Swaminathan, Komal. “Water!: A Tamil Play by Komal Swaminathan.” Asian Theatre Journal, Translated by Subramanian Shankar, vol. 18, no. 2, 2001, pp. 123–173., https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1353/atj.2001.0023.