Preoccupied by the war in the Middle East, it took me a while to realise that something explosive was cooking on JioHotstar too. Launched on March 20, Chiraiya (bird), a tale of the sustained marital rape of a new bride by her ‘charming’ husband in a middle-class Hindu household in Lucknow, quickly became the most-watched limited-episode series nationwide across OTT platforms.
Alongside massive viewership numbers, this modestly budgeted Diyva Dutta-Sanjay Mishra starrer also recorded the highest completion rates across multiple languages on JioHotstar. In other words, people didn’t just start the series and then opt out, but stayed till the end. Even now, in late May, it continues to spark debates, reactions and memes on a daily basis.
Many of these reactions include accusations of propaganda, hurled predictably by those who prefer their rape victims burqa-clad and sans sindoor.
The concept of a fair, beautiful, educated, red-and-gold-clad Hindu bride crying rape—because she had high fever on her wedding night and her husband brushing aside her pleas of “not feeling well” with increasingly aggressive kisses and solicitous whispers of “feeling better now?” before barrelling ahead to the inevitable non-consensual consummation—seems to have unsettled entrenched notions of entitlement masquerading as masculinity. Now, there are petulant memes complaining that women are “always ready” for their boyfriends and office colleagues but “never ready” for their husbands. They have used one of the saddest, most heart-rending rape images from the show to represent how Chennai Super Kings got bludgeoned in the IPL; they have labelled the makers of the show anti-national, you get the picture.
And yet, even as these voices rage online, the show continues to break OTT records. See, Chiraiya isn’t a flawless show. It gets a bit preachy and melodramatic and on-the-nose in bits, sharing DNA, not so much with last year’s powerful Netflix hit Adolescence, but with Hotstar’s immensely popular Anupamaa. (Writer Divya Nidhi Sharma has credits on both, as well as on Lapataa Ladies.) But when the adversary is deeply entrenched desi patriarchy, and the aim is not just ratings but social change, perhaps a blunt, direct approach is precisely what works.
Divya Dutta embodies that blunt force. As the elder daughter-in-law—more Pooja from Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, than Damini from Damini—she transforms from a doting sister-in-law to a relentless seeker of justice, determined to hold her brother-in-law accountable for the week-long assault of his wife. Through her, we confront the devastating reality that marital rape is not recognised a crime in India. Through her, we grapple with the limits of justice—resisting easier, short-cut solutions like slapping a dowry case on the whole family. And through her, we arrive at the only available verdict: public shaming and expulsion from the family.
Is this too weak a punishment for such a brutal crime? Certainly not. But given the constraints of the law, and the fact that marital rape often finds tacit sanction in society and tradition—it is not perhaps an entirely powerless one.
In naiver pre-liberalisation days, Doordarshan used to air skits titled Zara Sochiye (think about it) aimed at increasing public awareness about cleanliness, social and civic responsibilities. Hotstar is (sometimes) brave enough to shoulder this task. Kudos to them for ushering consent so compellingly into traditional Indian drawing rooms.
editor@theweek.in