Water is a social drama, set in 1938, Varanasi and explores the lives of widows pre-independence. The movie is the third installment of Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy, which was preceded by Fire (1996) and Earth (1998). An eight-year-old girl Chuyia (Sarala Kariyawasam) becomes a widow after the untimely death of her husband. Like other widows, her head is shaved, and she is dressed in a white sari and sent to an ashram to spend the rest of her life. She gets used to her new life. The ashram is run by an elderly lady in her 70s, who uses a young beautiful widow Kalyani (Lisa Ray) to prostitution to support the ashram financially. Things take a turn when an upper-classman named Narayan (John Abraham) falls in love with Kalyani, and wants to marry her. Will Kalyani dare to go with him or the fear of social disgrace stop her from having a happy life?