It started with a charcha over chai, but a one-episode narration by writer Divy Nidhi Sharma stretched to two hours. By the end of it, Divya Dutta was “moved, jumping in my seat, saying, ‘Yeh story karte hain’.” At the heart of Chiraiya lies a line that feels deceptively simple: Shaadi license nahin hai. The JioHotstar series unpacks what consent means within a marriage and confronts the reality of marital rape, which is yet to be criminalised by law.

That instinctive pull came from the story’s core, which addresses normalised violence within marriages and the silence that sustains it, she says. “I think it’s a story where there’s a combined synergy from the platform, and director [Shashant Shah], who is very sensitive. You need sensitivity for a subject like this. It cannot be made any other way,” says the actor.