Ghatashraddha (The Ritual)

Yamuna, a child widow, lives with her father Udupa, who runs a residential Vedic school for Brahmin boys. Naani, a new student at the school, develops a deep bond of affection with Yamuna. Yamuna has a forbidden affair with a school teacher and becomes pregnant. Yamuna attempts suicide but is rescued by Naani. She then tries to abort her child secretly, but the schoolboys spy on her and reveal her secret to her father. She is excommunicated from the village by her father, who performs a funeral rite for his living daughter. The heartrending end of the film sees Naani going back home with his father when he spots a forlorn Yamuna sitting alone under a tree on the outskirts of the village with her head shaved.

Ghatashraddha is a ritual that was practised by the orthodox Brahmins in the old days. It is normally performed by the son during his parents’ death ceremony or—in the absence of male children—by the parents while still living by symbolically breaking a pot. Ironically, this ritual of emancipation later on became a ritual of suppression and used by the Brahmin society to excommunicate women who rebelled against a male-dominant society. In the story, the subjugation of Yamuna by the Brahmin orthodoxy, and of Naani by his colleagues, are knitted so organically that the personal and the political blend together. The fertility cult is central here: Indian society revels in it, but in practice it abhors it. As we were designing the style of the film, me, my brother and other visual artists of Karnataka felt we needed to shed more light on the fertility cult and the Kundalini art.

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