Ghatashraddha

(The Ritual; Kannada/B&W/1977)
  

Ghatashradha is a cruel way of excommunication. The death rites are performed for a living person to mark his excommunication from Brahmin society. This ritual is far more vicious than the crimes it is meant to punish.

Yamunakka, a child widow, grows up in a system that denies her the right to live a normal life. But the emotions and desires are natural to her age. She has an affair with the village school teacher, and gets pregnant. Her lover arranged an abortion for her and disappears from the village.

The elders discover Yamunakka's secret. Retribution is swift. Her father performs the ghatashraddha. Yet a social system that condemns a young widow with such cruelty, accepts the remarriage of her old and widowed father with a girl young enough to be his daughter.