Black Widows: Here’s How Veera, Kavita and Jayati Played Hide-n-Seek With The Law And Emerged As #WomenOnTop

In the age of virtual theatres, the Indian crime sagas are populated with candy-type female leads. They rarely have any representation. The storylines revolve around the male leads, only reacting to what was happening or being done to them. Most of the time their presence mattered only as a love interest and when it came to secondary female characters it gets even more cliche. However, Birsa Dasgupta’s Black Widows has got the strokes of characterization pretty right, breaking the usual principles of storytelling on OTT.

The show gave us a resilient and strong Veera (Mona Singh), an intelligent and cunning Jayati (Swastika Mukherjee), a moody Kavita (Shamita Shetty). And they don’t confine themselves to the usual notions of femininity. Also, the secondary female characters play a vital role in this riveting drama. So, here’s taking a look at how the female leads and their personas played hide-n-seek with the law and emerged out as the heroes of this dark comedy.

Tough In Their Own Way

“A stay-at-home mother is no less than a soldier,” and that’s what Veera, Jayati, and Kavita proved. Firstly, they accurately plan to kill their husbands, then they deal with the outcome of their husbands’ shady businesses and at the same time, they are always a step ahead of the investigating team trying their best to solve the murder mystery. The three of them being together, standing firmly for each other, and tackling all the problems paved the way for them escaping from the eyes of the law.

Trauma And Their Shaping Opinions

Facing their troubled and abusive marriages, the leads of Black Widows, Veera, Jayati, and Kavita made the decision of killing their husbands. In a way, they valued their self-worth, trusted their instincts, and opted for such a decision based on the traumatic system they were a part of. At the beginning of the show, there are a few reflective moments where one can nearly experience what abusive marriages are all about. And that’s how these characters and their behaviour was justified further in the story.

Them going against the law was thoroughly justified through the sufferings from their marriages and hence that sense of freedom helped black widows tackle their way out of this crime.

Flawed, Yet A Boss!

At times Kavita is a simpleton, Veera makes wrong decisions and Jayati underestimates the situation. But these flaws are what humanizes them and adds to the realism of these characters. The way they deal with their shortcomings, make them evolve further in the story. Also, their stratagems keep them one step ahead of the investigating officer Pankaj Mishra and they ultimately emerge as the ‘boss’ of the story.

Overall, Black Widows has some finely written female characters that stand out as an exception in the era of crime dramas populated with machoism. 

Black Widows is now streaming on ZEE5.