Amazon Prime Video’s Chhorii pivots on the prevalent horrors confronted by women — female infanticides, domineering patriarchy and unceasing enslavement. Chhorii, a Hindi remake of the Marathi film, Lapachhapi finely portrays the real monsters amongst us, steered by their orthodox mindsets bringing devastation into the lives of women.
The story kicks off with a pregnant lady earnestly begging someone to stop the slaughter of her unborn child. She is given a knife by three young boys instructed as if to kill her baby herself. Subjected to a strange force, her hands cut through her belly killing her child.
The scene advances to a pregnant young lady and an NGO volunteer, Sakshi (Nushrratt Bharuccha) who is seen instilling values of gender equality in young children. Hemant (Saurabh Goyal), introduced as her husband looks nervous after noticing two people in a car checking on them.
Later that night, Hemant gets beaten up by goons who barge into their house. They threaten to destroy the whole family if Hemant fails to pay back the loaned amount within 24 hours. Both Sakshi and Hemant are horrified and decide upon fleeing the city to stay undercover for a little while.
Their driver, Kajala (Rajesh Jais), asserts that his village would be the safest as it is 300 kilometres away and rarely visited by outsiders. After a long ride, they finally reach the village completely blanketed by sugarcane fields.
Kajala and his wife, Bhano Devi (Mita Vashisht) arrange the couple’s stay at Yogeshwar’s (Kajala’s dead brother) house. The whole place evokes an eerie feeling in Sakshi.
The next morning, Sakshi finds another room at the back of the house while wandering in the courtyard. The interior of the room looks absolutely destroyed by a huge fire.
She starts adjusting to rural life and listens to the stories told by Bhano Devi. One morning, Sakshi comes across Rani (Pallavi Ajay) and notices a huge cut on her belly. Bhano Devi comes in that instant and shares Rani’s tragic tale with Sakshi.
Rani is the wife of their elder son, Rajbir. She states that when Rani fell over in the field, the child died in her womb. They had to cut her belly and take out the dead baby. After losing the child, Rajbir was so saddened that he left to settle in the city. Bhano Devi’s story is in complete contradiction to the introductory scene, creating an air of mystery.
Hemant leaves for the city to arrange the money while Sakshi is left under the care of Bhano Devi. Does Sakshi know all about the neighbourhood and its people or there’s more to unearth?
Chhorii ending explained in detail:
Hide and seek
That evening, Sakshi witnesses three children goofing around while playing hide and seek. Being a huge child-lover, she cannot control herself when Bhano Devi strongly restricts her from associating with them.
The three children keep appearing every now and then and often take her to that room in the back where an enchanting lullaby keeps playing on the transistor. This infuriates Bhano Devi and the two lock horns.
Hemant comes back and Sakshi wants to leave urgently as she feels being watched upon by Bhano Devi and that her baby is unsafe. The couple are about to leave when Hemant gets hit on his head with a bamboo stick and Sakshi is drugged.
Sakshi upon regaining consciousness at times, sees a huge fire ritual being performed and that she is being tied to a bed. In her hallucinogenic state, Bhano Devi tells her the story of Sunaini (Yaaneea Bharadwaj) who was married to Yogeshwar, Hemant’s uncle.
Sunaini is described as a witch who cast a wicked spell on Devi’s three young boys. Later, when forced to leave their home, she killed her own husband and committed suicide by jumping in the well, taking the three kids with her.
She elaborates on the ongoing curse in the family that doesn’t let them produce an heir as Sunaini kills all the babies whenever Rajbir’s wives get pregnant. To neutralise this curse, Sakshi needs to stay alone in the house for three days and come out alive along with her baby.
The truth
Sakshi regains consciousness and tries her best to flee the place with her baby and find Hemant but is unable to escape the labyrinth.
She keeps seeing the ghosts of three children playing hide and seek and also a woman whose face is covered by a red veil trying to catch them. Aware of the story as told by Bhanu, she is terrified and justifies that she is just hallucinating.
She keeps moving through the maze and marking to paint a map of the area to save her baby from the dreadful consequences. In her endeavours, she also witnesses the real story of Sunaini, which is shown to her in segments.
At times, she becomes Sunaini and survives through the tortures meted out to her by Rajbir’s family. She observes the innocence in the relationship between Sunaini and the young boys. The young boys promised Sunaini to protect their baby sister and play with her.
Sunaini strongly protested against giving away her baby girl to be sacrificed for the ritual of harvest. Yogeshwar was physically assaulting her to change her decision and accidentally killed himself after falling on a knife.
Sunaini was convicted of murder and she was set ablaze in her room by Rajbir and his family. Sunaini gave birth in that burned state and the baby girl was taken away to be sacrificed.
She ran to save her but Rajbir threw the child in the sacrificial well. Completely shattered, Sunaini jumped into the well and the three young boys followed her after to save her. After her death, the dreaded curse followed as Sunaini kept taking her revenge by depriving the family of an heir.
Sakshi’s fate
Sakshi is under the grapples of the same curse as Hemant is actually Rajbir. On being forced to kill her baby by Sunaini’s spirit and the young boys handing out the knife, she pleads with Sunaini earnestly to not kill her baby.
She tells Sunaini that she is deeply saddened to know her terrifying tale. She promises to bring in terrible punishment for all the perpetrators who participated in the horrific deed.
Sunaini’s spirit leaves the place and without harming Sakshi and her baby. The family returns and is happy to see both Sakshi and her baby fine. Hemant urges Sakshi to return to the city away from these dangerous people.
Sakshi spills out the whole tale and projects a strong hatred towards Hemant a.k.a Rajbir. She is ready to leave for the city and Hemant tries to stab her from behind. However, before he can harm Sakshi, Rani stabs Hemant with a sickle.
Rani follows Sakshi as she moves through the maze to return to the city. The three young boys point out the right route to her to exit.
Also Read: Dhamaka (2021) summary and ending explained