General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Gejje Pooje (ಗೆಜ್ಜೆಪೂಜೆ)

Gejje Pooje (ಗೆಜ್ಜೆಪೂಜೆ) is a 1969 Indian Kannada-language drama film directed by Puttanna Kanagal and based on the novel of the same name by the Kannada writer M. K. Indira. The film examines the devadasi system, in which women were dedicated to temple service and, in practice, often entered sexual servitude, through the story of Chandra, the daughter of a devadasi who tries to educate her way out of the tradition¹. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada and the Best Screenplay award at the 17th National Film Awards², and it is regarded as a landmark of Kannada cinema³.

Key fact	Detail
Director	S. R. Puttanna Kanagal, who also wrote the screenplay and dialogues⁴
Source	Novel Gejje Pooje by M. K. Indira⁵
Lead cast	Kalpana as Chandra, Gangadhar as Somu, Leelavathi as Aparna, Aarathi as Lalita⁶
National awards	Best Feature Film in Kannada and Best Screenplay, 17th National Film Awards²
Telugu remake	Kalyana Mandapam (1971)⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Chandra is the daughter of Aparna, a woman in the flesh trade. Aparna hopes her daughter will have a better life, and Chandra, a bright student, wants to continue her education, marry, and live as an ordinary member of society¹^•⁹. She grows up alongside her neighbor Somu, and the two fall in love⁴.

The relationship collapses when Somu suspects Chandra because of her mother's background and marries another woman¹. Left with no alternative, Chandra dies by suicide rather than undergo the gejje pooje and become a devadasi¹^•¹⁷. A fuller synopsis in the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema adds that Aparna, an orphan raised by a brothel madam, deliberately brought up Chandra in a different city among respectable neighbors to keep her out of prostitution, and that the resurfacing of Chandra's father, whom she cannot explain to her fiancé's family, causes the broken engagement and her return to prostitution⁷.

Title meaning

In the story, Chandra dies by suicide rather than undergo this ceremony and thereby become a devadasi¹^•¹⁷. A separate academic usage records the term as a regional name for a pre-puberty custom in the Mysore region of Karnataka⁸.

Production

The film was produced by the Rashi Brothers under the banner Chitra Jyoti⁵. S. V. Srikanth handled cinematography, V. P. Krishnan edited the film, and Sundar Krishna Urs served as assistant director⁴. Aarathi, who played Lalita, Somu's sister and Chandra's friend, made her screen debut in this film⁷.

Release dates and runtime differ across databases. Moviebuff, Letterboxd, and Plex list a theatrical release on 1 January 1969⁷^•⁶; The Times of India gives 10 April 1969¹⁰; and Chiloka gives 27 December 1969⁴. Runtimes are reported as 2 hours 42 minutes (162 minutes)¹⁰^•⁹, 2 hours 24 minutes⁷, and 148 minutes⁴ by different sources. The film was shot in black and white at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1⁷.

Style and themes

The film continues Puttanna Kanagal's fascination with tragic heroines, a line of roles embodied by Kalpana until Sharapanjara (1971) and then by Aarathi⁷. Kalpana's tragic roles in Gejje Pooje and Sharapanjara helped define a Kannada cinema drawn from popular literature¹¹.

Two visual registers structure the film. The world of middle-class orthodoxy is filmed in one style, while the worlds of Aparna and Chandra are rendered through tight close-ups, expressions of terror, and low-angle shots of exploitative men; the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema describes the second aesthetic as making the first increasingly brittle in both image and sound. A musical leitmotiv associated with the violin that Aparna plays when she remembers her father extends into expressionist sound effects⁷.

Thematically, the film belongs to a group of Kannada films that explored women's sexuality and social plight, alongside Sharapanjara (1971) and Edakallu Guddamele (1973)¹². The Directorate of Film Festivals' catalog credits Puttanna Kanagal as the first Kannada film-maker to approach themes till then not handled, citing Gejje Pooje among the films evidencing his pioneering role¹³.

Director and reception

Puttanna Kanagal (1933-1985) directed mostly women-centric films on offbeat or taboo subjects and is described as making "bridge films" between art and commercial cinema; most of his films, including Gejje Pooje, were based on novels³^•¹⁴. At the 17th National Film Awards the film won Best Feature Film in Kannada and Best Screenplay², and the Karnataka State Film Awards for 1969-70 honored it as First Best Film with individual awards for Leelavathi, Kanagal, dialogue writer Navarathna Ram Rao, and cinematographer S. V. Srikanth.

The film has remained in circulation as a classic. It appears on the National Film Archive of India's list of restored films¹⁵, was screened at the Pune International Film Festival in January 2018⁹, and is described by the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema as Kanagal's best-known film outside Karnataka⁷. As of mid-2026 it was not available on any streaming service in the United States¹⁶.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Kannada films before 2010

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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