Manju Kapur’s 2011 novel Custody was adapted into Indian shows across languages, including Ekta Kapoor’s Ye Hai Mohabbatein in Hindi . A...
Manju Kapur’s 2011 novel Custody was adapted into Indian shows across languages, including Ekta Kapoor’s Ye Hai Mohabbatein in Hindi. Almost a decade later, Kapur and Kapoor have collaborated once again for The Married Woman, based on Kapur’s 2002 novel A Married Woman.
The series, directed by Sahir Raza, will be launched on March 8 on AltBalaji and Zee5. Ridhi Dogra and Monica Dogra are Astha and Piplika respectively, who find fulfillment in one other. The cast includes Suhaas Ahuja, Imaad Shah, Divya Seth Shah, Ayesha Raza, Rahul Vohra and Nadira Babbar.
Kapur won the 1999 Commonwealth Book Prize for her debut Difficult Daughters, which centred on the Partition. A Married Woman is set in 1992, the year the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was destroyed by Hindutva mobs. Communal tensions form the backdrop for a taboo same-sex relationship.
“These things are always festering in the country and ready to flare up when stoked by vested interests,” Kapur told Scroll.in. “I wanted to show how these attitudes can just come about so casually, prejudices can be stoked so easily. I hope I’ve done that.”
With A Married Woman, Kapur wanted to capture the male-centric approach that’s endemic to Indian society. Though the relationship between her protagonists turns sexual, the author initially wanted to highlight traditional family structure dynamics.
“In many ways, women are certainly...
