i) Kalindi × Lipakshi
Kalindi and Lipakshi were both trapped in a marriage devoid of love. Yet both of them were vocal about their suppressed sexual desires. While Kalindi justified her decision of exploring her sexuality in the soliloquies, Lipakshi openly rebuked her husband asserting his inability to satiate her desires.
Though both of them quenched their unfulfilled desires through people with the intention of not getting emotionally attached to them yet both of them ended up besotted with emotions thus turning themselves into objects of misery.
While Kalindi let go of Tejas as she was baffled about her own feelings towards him, Leepakshi became a victim of ignorance harboring her feelings for Raj who eventually betrayed her.
ii) Meenal × Sudha
Meenal and Sudha, the two housemaids represented how women hailing from the lower strata of society were mere toys in the hands of pompous and pretentious upper-class people. Sudha was sexually involved with Ajit, but with Ajit's marriage being fixed in the end, it was made clear that she was used by Ajit to fulfill his desires of lust.
Meenal also endured the same situation while she was employed by Vinod Agarwal who sexually tried to exploit her but unlike Sudha, Meenal was successful in preserving her dignity. In the denouement both of the characters coincided at a point where Sudha accepted her fate wearing a smile, eating the sweet given to her on account of Ajit's marriage being fixed and Meenal accepted her helplessness of being wrongly accused of a crime she didn't commit as she didn't have any means to fight back.
iii) Reena × Natasha
Reena and Natasha were both married to self-absorbed husbands who never loved them the way they wanted. While Reena became romantically involved with Sudhir and Natasha fell in love with Kabir, they both knew this love won't last long.
Reena and Natasha were the representatives of those housewives who lost themselves in the drudgery of their everyday household chores. Yet they both possessed the courage to fulfill their unfulfilled desires of being showered with proper love and care through people with whom they had to eventually part ways in order to shoulder the responsibilities expected of a typical housewife.
iv) Megha × Priya
Megha and Priya were both subjected to the whims of condescending in-laws. Megha who wasn't sexually gratified by her husband could never voice out her feelings as she was suppressed by the urges of her mother-in-law to give her the pleasure of grandchildren similarly Priya could never voice out about her sexual preferences as her husband imposed upon her his wishes of having a child.
Megha and Priya were the archetypes of the subdued voices of those million women who are shackled by the chains of patriarchy. While Megha successfully fulfilled her wish breaking the stereotype, Priya and her desires got crushed under the responsibility of motherhood.
By Srilekha Mitra