The Ritual

‘Ghatashradda’ is a ritual of excommunication among Brahmins, the highest caste in the Indian society. It involves the death ritual being performed for a person who has to be punished, which in fact expreses the fact that this person is `dead’ to the community. It is a ritual that is usually much more severe than the crime that is being punished.Yamunakka, a child widow, grows up in a system that denies her right to lead a normal life. But at her age, emotions and desires are experienced stronger than rules. She has an affair with the village schoolteacher and gets pregnant. Her lover arranges an abortion but also disappears from the village.The elders discover Yamunakka’s secret. Punishment is unavoidable. Her father performs ‘ghatashradda’. Yet a social system that condemns a young widow accepts the remarriage of her old and widowed father with a girl young enough to be his daughter.With a lot of understanding for the characters in the film, the director portrays in a very sophisticated manner the dark corners of life of the highest caste among Hindus. Very impressive acting and brilliant camerawork are contributing to the director’s poetic atmosphere filled with dejection and suffering. With this film, Girish Kasaravalli won his first Golden Lotus (major film award in India) and became one of the pillars of the Indian New Wave.