How ‘Chiraiya’ Exposes India’s Marital Rape Exception

The opening of the new streaming series Chiraiya will remind you of an incredibly insightful Malayalam film: The Great Indian Kitchen. You see the hands of women carefully dicing an onion and cooking. But then, just like you did with The Great Indian Kitchen, you realize that something is off. When a group of men start attacking a man, Kamlesh (a mesmerizing Divya Dutta) steps out of her kitchen to beat them senseless. She is, after all, protective of her brother-in-law, Arun, whom she treats like her own son, since she doesn’t have one of her own.

On the surface, her home seems perfect: her father-in-law is a renowned scholar who writes poetry, her husband respects and loves her, her mother-in-law is like her friend, and her Arun can do no wrong. But just like The Great Indian Kitchen slowly unravels what might look perfect, Chiraiya unspools the dangers behind a “respected” family. The father-in-law might not be so progressive after all, and your unlikeliest ally might be someone who initially misunderstood you. The series centers the failings of the Indian legal system, which still doesn’t recognize marital rape as rape. But one must ask: how long will real change take?