Wedding Night: Kadakk Chai’s Kannada web series highlights that virginity doesn’t define a woman’s moral values

The two-part show, which premiered on the group’s Youtube channel, stars Manu and Tulsi Shetty.

A still from the two-part Kannada series

Yesterday, Kadakk Chai, which has been making Kannada short films, music videos and web series, dropped their latest project, Wedding Night on its Youtube channel. The two-part show, with a total run-time of less than 35 minutes, stars Manu and Tulsi Shetty, in lead roles.

As Samarth and Smitha, Manu and Tulsi play two characters, introduced for a potential arranged match. Samarth has a history of being rejected by prospective brides, while Smitha has said no to everyone her father brought along so far. For reasons best known to her, Smitha agrees to the match and the narrative then takes off on their ‘First Night’.

Samarth can’t wait to consummate their relationship; but Smitha would rather talk first. She portrays herself as someone who smokes and drinks and when Samarth doesn’t take offence to that, decides to drop another ‘bomb’ on him. Smitha is not a virgin. For Samarth that feels like a deal-breaker, and for a while it seemed that the creative team of Kadakk Chai was following a misogynistic viewpoint on the subject. Not that it’s eventual handling of the subject is any better.

The series, which until then had a more playful tone, gets more serious – Smitha, it turns out, is a victim of sexual abuse and implores Samarth, and, society in general, not to be judgemental of a woman without knowing all the facts.

Herein lies the problem with Wedding Night. The focus should have just been to not be judgemental at all, irrespective of the how, why, etc. because the message at the end still is that had Smitha been in a consensual relationship and lost her virginity, Samarth would not have been okay with that. In this day and age, such limited and outdated views ought to be rooted out.

What works for the series by director Prashant is his lead cast's chemistry. Manu and Tulsi not only do justice to their roles, but make for a cute couple too.

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