The Married Woman
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
In Delhi in 1992, as the city divides along religious lines, a married college lecturer falls in love with a widowed artist; from Manju Kapur's novel.
Delhi, 1992, the year Hindu nationalist mobs tear down the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Astha, a college lecturer, has been married for eleven years to Hemant, a businessman, and shares a house with him, their two children and his parents, in a life so ordered that even the nights they sleep together are fixed in advance. She tells her story straight to the camera.
The first change comes through Aijaz, the director of a student play at her college, a secular free spirit who quotes Urdu poetry. Astha falls for him and tells him so; he offers only friendship. Then Aijaz is murdered, and Astha meets his widow, Peeplika, an artist who drinks, has taken lovers of both sexes and says she falls for souls, not genders. Around them the city divides along religious lines. Timsi, a young woman who confides in Astha, elopes with a Muslim man, Mudassar; Peeplika helps them marry, and with her help the two families come round.
Astha and Peeplika fall in love. Astha lies to Hemant to see her, even under curfew, and joins her at a relief camp; Hemant begins to suspect she is cheating. Babbo, a relative by marriage who has been watching the two women, catches them together at the party for Astha's eleventh wedding anniversary and tells Hemant. Peeplika is offered a job in Paris and asks Astha to come with her. Hemant tells his wife she is nothing without him, and after their fight Astha decides to go. In the last episode she begins teaching her children to manage without her. Then Peeplika's mother, Indira, tells her something of Peeplika's past, and Astha confronts Peeplika with what she has learned. Doubt wins: the two women part, and Astha stays with her family. The season closes on that choice, with their story unfinished.
Starring
Ridhi Dograas Astha
A college lecturer and dutiful wife in 1992 Delhi, whose ordered life comes apart when she falls in love with a woman.
Astha’s story
Astha's marriage to Hemant runs to a timetable, down to the nights they sleep together, and she tells the camera so. Aijaz, the director of her college play, is the first to unsettle it: she falls for him and tells him, and he offers friendship. After he is murdered she grows close to his widow, Peeplika. She falls in love with her, lies to Hemant to see her, even under curfew, and goes with her to a relief camp. Babbo sees them together at the anniversary party and tells Hemant, who tells Astha she is nothing without him. She decides to go to Paris with Peeplika and quietly teaches her children to manage without her. Then Peeplika's mother tells her about Peeplika's past; Astha confronts her, doubt wins, and she stays.
Monica Dograas Peeplika Khan
Aijaz's widow, a bohemian artist who says she loves souls rather than genders and asks Astha to follow her to Paris.
Peeplika Khan’s story
Peeplika drinks, paints and has taken lovers of both sexes, and things are strained between her and her mother. After Aijaz is murdered, she and Astha grow close as they grieve him, and when Timsi elopes with Mudassar, Peeplika sees the young couple married and their families reconciled. It is she who first asks Astha what she feels, and Astha who denies it. They fall in love. Peeplika takes Astha to a relief camp in the riots, wants her to meet her friends, and grows jealous of her marriage. She turns up at Astha's anniversary party. Offered work in Paris, she asks Astha to come with her, and Astha says yes. Then, while Astha is helping her pack, her mother, Indira, arrives and tells Astha about Peeplika's past. Astha confronts her with it, and the two women part.
Suhaas Ahujaas Hemant
Astha's husband, a businessman who takes her for granted and treats her feelings as a passing madness.
Imaad Shahas Aijaz
A secular, poetry-loving stage director at Astha's college, the first to unsettle her life, whose murder changes it.
Ayesha Razaas Babbo
A relative by marriage who grows suspicious of Astha and Peeplika and tells Hemant what she has seen.
Why it matters
The Married Woman sets a love story between two women inside the months when India's idea of itself as a secular republic was being broken in the streets, and asks what freedom can mean to a woman whose life has been arranged down to the calendar of her marriage bed. It adapts Manju Kapur's novel A Married Woman; Kapur has said she wanted to show how hard it is to find emotional fulfilment within structures that seem to give a woman everything. The series frames Astha's awakening as love for a person rather than a gender, and ends with the two women parting and Astha staying with her children. Reviewers were divided: several praised the two leads, while others felt the riots served as a mere backdrop and the romance caught fire too fast. The question it leaves is one many married women never ask aloud: whether a life that is not unhappy must therefore be kept.