Movie :
Based on real-life events, the movie recounts the story of 12-year-old, middle-class girl, a carefree child, who when she begins to menstruate is used in an ancient religious practice. A "marriage" to the goddess Yellama.
The ritual, which Maya doesn't know will take place, is performed at the village temple, whose priests take turns in raping her while her family prepares a grand, celebratory feast outside.
Called
Devadasism, it involves the religiously sanctioned consignment of girls to a lifetime of sexual slavery in India, performed by Venkatasani and Jogini cults among others. In some cases it's not priests but the local landlords who carries out the act and different gods are involved. Child abuse with religious sanctions, ritualized rape.
Indian government agencies estimate that anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 girls, sold for as little as $4 and as young as 9, are dedicated to this practice every year. A large number of sex worker arise from amongst them due to these young girls not having any hope of respectable family after so called deflowering & being concubine of priests in temples. Upper castes wouldn't drink from the same glass as a devadasi, but they make use of her body.
It starkly contrasts the beauty and simplicity of the subjects childhood years; innocent, carefree and casual, with what happened to her next. I think it highlights the limitless fluidity within "Indian" consciousness where so called pious pandits can justify raping young girls by manipulating religion.
Apparently it was not easy to have made. Interestingly, the director was told, "This film might be easier to fund if you put a white character in there, like a journalist travelling through India searching for her soul who chances upon this case and uses it as a way to redeem herself." European Priests were the first to try and to outlaw the tradition. The practice was legal in India until 1988, yet it still continues.
Villagers have the attitude, "somebody has to be dedicated, or the goddess will be angry". I wonder about the context in which the young girls are given to the BKWSU ...