Daasi

Daasi (English: The Courtesan) is a Telugu drama film written and directed by B. Narsing Rao starring Archana as Daasi Kamalakshi. The film won five National Film Awards. The film won Diploma of Merit award at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1989. The film was subsequently premiered at the 1989 International Film Festival of India.

The plot

The story is of Kamalakshi (Archana), a bonded woman known as Daasi in Hyderabad State in the 1920s in Telangana region. She has been sold by her family for money to be the servant of a wealthy couple. She is expected to do every chore imaginable in their house. She is also required to be the sexual toy of the man of the house (Dora) and his guests - anywhere and at anytime of the day or night. When she becomes pregnant, she endures and hopes to keep the baby. However she is forced to have an abortion.

Awards

Daasi (1952 film)

Daasi (English: Slave) is a 1952 Telugu film directed by C.V. Ranganatha Das and produced by actress C. Lakshmi Rajyam.

Plot

Ramaiah (NTR) is a horse-cart driver and his wife Lakshmi (Lakshmi Rajyam) works as a maid at the house of a wealthy man, Badrinath (S.V. Rangarao). The couple has a son, Subbadu. Badrinath, who is issueless, decides to remarry to have children and is in search of a bride. His wife Parvathamma (Santhakumari) is advised by her elder brother Ramarao (Srivatsa) to fake pregnancy. She reluctantly agrees. As Lakshmi is pregnant again, Ramarao’s idea is to show her baby as that of Parvathamma’s to Badrinath and dissuade him from a second marriage. Ramaiah suspects infidelity on the part of Lakshmi and sends her out of the house. She takes shelter in Parvathamma’s house, delivers a baby girl and is shocked to find Parvathamma and the baby missing from there. Ramaiah remarries Durgi (Kanakam), who elopes with a stage actor after throwing her step son Subbadu into a stream. Dejected Lakshmi, who decides to end her life by jumping into the stream, finds her son and saves him with the help of a doctor (Dr. Damodaram).