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In the first half of the 20th century, somewhere in rural Karnataka, Naani, a young Brahmin boy, is left to board at a seemingly run-down Vedic school by his father. It is time for him to follow the traditional path of learning Sanskrit and mastering priestly rituals, the duty of his caste. As the junior of three young-adult students, Naani is frequently bullied but finds comfort in Yamuna, the headmaster’s sad and silent daughter, a young widow in her twenties. Soon, she turns to Naani for escaping from the meddling Godavarama, who becomes suspicious of her recent absence from her father’s religious ceremonies. Could Yamuna be unwell?

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Let’s pause here. Assuming you haven’t seen the film and wishing to avoid any spoilers. Still, these first 20 minutes are sufficient to grasp the underlying mechanics driving the story forward.

The title of Girish Kasaravalli's 1977 film "Ghatashraddha" is directly translated as "The Ritual," although the on-screen English title is "Ritual of Excommunication." Both titles reflect the bleak circumstances of the film's protagonist, even though "The Ritual" implies that women are abused and discarded as a matter of course. "Ghatashraddha" is a bleak tragedy about a woman named Yamuna (Meena Kuttappa) who lives with her religious schoolteacher father (Ramaswamy Iyengar) and who is already a widow at a young age. Yamuna is already seeing another man, also a schoolteacher, although their affair is secret ... as is her pregnancy. The only person who treats Yamuna with any friendliness is a young boy named Naani (Ajith Kumar), who serves as a witness to the story.

When her father goes out of town to raise money for his school, everything falls apart. The school deteriorates, gossip begins to spread, and Yamuna becomes an outcast.