With Delhi Crime 2 and Darlings, Shefali Shah carves a niche for resilient women in the OTT space

Formidable, assertive and above all, resilient - in just one month, Shefali Shah has made great strides towards portraying female characters in the OTT space who are strong, badass and yet human and prone to making mistakes. Not just in Bollywood but even in the OTT shows - female characters are portrayed in extremes - they are either subservient, domesticated women who are meant to be sympathized with or empowered, progressive women who are near-perfect and almost never break down or feel vulnerable. To put it simply - they are either damsels in distress or near-perfect headstrong women with no faults whatsoever. There is no room for women who lie in between these extremes - no room for shades of gray or nuance, or so it seems. That was until Shefali Shah changed this norm once and for all.

Shamsu and Vartika: Two Sides Of A Coin In the second season of Netflix’s Delhi Crime , Shah plays DCP Vartika Chaturvedi who investigates a series of brutal murders with the same conviction and resolve she used to solve the brutal gang rape case in the first season. In Darlings, she plays Shamsunissa, who stands like a wall between her daughter and her abusive husband, while struggling to cope with her own trauma of an abusive relationship. Both Vartika and Shamsu are fundamentally different - while Vartika as DCP has the power to influence the system and in the process, help women get justice, Shamsu can barely hold her own and struggles to save both her daughter (and in a way, herself) from the trauma of suffering domestic abuse. While one is privileged and has the authority of a District Police Commissioner, the other is from a marginalized community struggling to make her catering business work.

Two women, from different walks of life and fundamentally different social and religious backgrounds, ironically face similar challenges. Both are affected by the patriarchal societal norms and cope with them in their own ways. While Vartika is in a position of power, she is still used as a pawn and controlled like a puppet by her superiors who are higher up in the food chain (the Commissioner of Police) who forces her to create a false narrative framing - Jugnu and Azad - who are innocent. While Shamsu walks the tightrope between protecting her daughter and in the process, making sure she doesn’t get branded as a divorcee, Vartika, too, tries to balance her principles with what her seniors expect from her. Both women, regardless of their social and cultural backgrounds, are limited by the power structures which try to keep them from doing what is right. Both of them, therefore, are given a hard time which one doubts would happen had they been men. Yet, both face the challenges and curveballs life throws at them with courage.

Strong, independent and flawed: Women are human too Shamsu and Vartika are fierce but at the same time, they are just as prone to feeling sad and vulnerable as anyone else. We see them make mistakes - Vartika trusts Neeti with guarding two prisoners - both of whom escape the captivity. Shamsu, too, makes an error in judgment by encouraging Badrunnisa to kill Hamza but eventually realizes that it wasn’t the right thing to do. Neither of the two women are infantilized, nor are they made into godlike Devis who can do no wrong. They are women who are strong but can also feel weak at times - and that only makes them human.

Shah helms the renaissance for women in OTT It would perhaps be incorrect to say Shah is the only one to play strong women characters in OTT. Rasika Dugal’s Beena in Mirzapur, Sushmita Sen’s Aarya and Raveena Tandon’s Kasturi in Arnayak are some of the many fierce female characters OTT gave us in the last decade. However, with Shah, it seems as if a Renaissance for women in the OTT dspace has set in. There’s something particularly refreshing in the women she plays on screen. It is, perhaps, that they are resilient and withstand whatever difficulty life throws at them. Each time they hit rock bottom, they rise up with twice the intensity and fight back with all the strength till there’s no more left. Or maybe it is the fact that they have no choice but to fight back because their fight is for survival. The stakes are high and neither Vartika nor Shamsu can afford to fail. For Vartika, it means loss of innocent lives and for Shamsu, it means losing her daughter Badrunissa.

It’s worth noting that neither Vartika nor Shamsu have safety nets or soft cushions to fall back on. They have no one to save them and perhaps, that is why both rise to the occasion and save themselves and the ones they care about on their own. There are no magical resolutions and it is Shamsu and Vartika who resolve the conflicts towards the end of Darlings and Delhi Crime, respectively.

Needless to say, Shah’s acting prowess is unparalleled and it remains to be seen what else she has in store for us. Undoubtedly, Shah has carved a niche for resilient women in the OTT space.