On her 8th wedding anniversary, Shivani* told her husband that she had read and researched the idea of open marriage and how it works. His response was the best gift to their relationship: “Tell me more.”
This is not a fictional scene, but one that actually turns out to be the savior of a nine-year marriage.
Shivani, 36, a fashion designer, and Anand*, 39, bistro owner in Pune, are rooted as social beings – from their job description to their social world, they are two individuals who only know how to be social. However, since they are the life of each party, they left a big gap between them.
The thought of an open marriage crossed Shivani’s mind one night when Anand was celebrating a colleague’s promotion and she stayed behind to settle in with some wine and Netflix. This wasn’t unusual for the two, as both have non-intersecting groups of friends and are comfortable with the other having lives of their own.
Shivani ended up watching Valeria on Netflix. A show where the protagonist Valeria is a married writer who has been stricken with both writer’s block and sees her stagnant relationship with her husband as an illness. After chatting with her best friends one warm afternoon, she learns a secret that might save her from the overwhelming sense of dread that was consuming her: open marriage.
“While I don’t mean to be an advocate of cheating or infidelity while watching Valeria, a conversation between Valeria and her husband (Adrián) opened my eyes to the fact that there was a missing link in my marriage and that it very likely will be an open one Marriage could be the answer.” Shivani explained, “We love each other, but sometimes it gets lost in the hustle and bustle around us. Just bringing up the conversation changed the dynamic between us. But of course we both know that it’s not easy as it is in ‘role life’ and that we need to communicate, probably a lot more than before, to make this work for us.”
Although we are the country that produced the Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment, we are a country within ourselves that embraces people’s need to explore their sexuality with themselves and others , has restricted.
Affairs, infidelity, cheating, and open marriages have been around in our world for so long that at almost every stage of our lives we’re constantly being taught that these actions are wrong—even unforgivable.
But slowly and steadily that watertight right-or-wrong perception is changing.
A screenshot of a scene from Valeria with actress Silma López in the title role
Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author, Esther Perel’s Ted Talk (March 2015) on “Rethinking Infidelity, a talk for every who has ever loved,” adds a layer of understanding to the “missing link” for most couples: “In the heart Oftentimes, in an affair, you will find a longing and yearning for emotional connection, for novelty, for autonomy, for sexual intensity, a desire to reclaim lost parts of ourselves, or an attempt to bring back vitality in the face of loss and tragedy.”
Modern Indians are changing the narrative of this story as more people open up and address their needs, discuss their desires and share their voices through various mediums. Recently, OTT platforms are adding a variety of content that enables conversations on these topics, while we still only have a handful tagged Make in India, we cannot ignore our audience who are watching, enjoying and am most importantly, discuss shows that talk about the multiplicity of layers within us.
Indian films like Super Deluxe, Lust Stories and more recently Gehraiyaan have a vigor that the earlier classics of this genre like Mira Nair’s India Cabaret (1985), Deepa Mehta’s Water (2005) and Leena Yadav’s Parched (2016), to name but a few to name , didn’t have: mainstream platforms to discuss them and, more importantly, for like-minded people to network about the topics they explore.
Without delving into the nuances of Gehraiyaan, the film has a plot that will make you question your own morals about attachment and infidelity. This film sheds light on the different layers that exist in all of us.
Alisha (Deepika Padukone) and Zain’s (Siddhant Chaturvedi) affair stems from their mutual attraction — but there’s something more. For her, he was a breath of fresh air in her otherwise suffocating life, which is portrayed as exhausting from the start of the film, in which Alisha appears to be mothering her boyfriend of six, Karan (Dhairya Karwa). as well as coming to terms with a traumatic past in one’s own family without support from their partner.
In an interview with Hindustan Times, Ananya Panday spoke about how acting in a film like Gehraiyaan has changed her thinking about infidelity: “… what I’ve learned while doing Gehraiyaan is not to judge. So instead of avoiding the person completely, maybe I’m trying to understand why they did it, what happened and all of that.”
“Pop culture representation is extremely important,” says Rhea Sakhardande, 23, an aspiring researcher with a master’s degree in sociology from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education. “The way infidelity, open marriages or other types of relationships are portrayed matters. It is very important. YouTubers should understand the impact that film and TV shows have on their audiences (actually), especially when it comes to actors who have a following of all ages. At Gehrayiaan, people rebelled in the comments because they couldn’t believe Deepika would play Padukone in such a role where she would betray her cousin and childhood friend-turned-lover,” she says.
Sakhardande then adds the crux of her argument: “What they’re missing is the relief she felt coming out of a toxic relationship with her boyfriend.”
In February 2020, a survey by Gleeden, an extramarital dating app, found that “about 55% of married Indians have been unfaithful to their partner at least once, of which 56% are women”. According to Wire reports, the app saw its Indian subscriber base increase by over 246% during the first wave of Covid-19.
And yet when it comes to portraying this reality via Indian pop culture, these acts or people are portrayed as either negative characters or selfish disappointments to their families. Or infidelity is shown as a means of rapprochement between man and woman and is thus the way to a happy ending. The nuances are mostly always missed.
Zoya Subhagar, a Berlin-based author and activist who is currently researching Decolonizing Gender in the Context of Kerala, believes that portrayals of hard-hitting issues like infidelity and open marriages are grossly misrepresented in role-playing.
“In shows and films, characters are often portrayed with unresolved trauma or low self-esteem, believing themselves ‘unworthy of love’ and indulging in coping mechanisms such as codependency or trauma bonding with adrenaline rushes as they ‘get away with cheating’. ,” she explains. “If people can’t accept or talk about those emotions or basic needs, then that’s a problem, maybe we need to look inside and ask ourselves ‘why?'”.
As creators, artists and most importantly as audiences, are we ready to finally give content that truly speaks to and represents the reality of the multiple layers of our human life and nature a comfortable place in the world, through art, cinema and dialogue? Because let’s face it, not all love stories are directed by David Dhawan.
*Names changed to protect respondents’ identities.
Richa Sheth is a freelance writer based in Pune. She explores the complexity of human interactions and relationships
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