The Married Woman ending explained: Love story at crossroads

ALTBalaji’s and ZEE5 ‘The Married Woman’ is the adaptation of Manju Kappor’s 2003 novel titled, ‘A Married Woman’. The web series and the novel are set amidst the political turmoil of the 90s.

The story rivets around Astha Kapoor (Ridhi Dogra), who is married to Hemant (Suhaas Ahuja) and has two children. The show begins with her ‘perfect’ initial years of married life, however, as the years go by, it is shown, the matrimony loses its passion and becomes a duty that Hemant, very righteously, performs. 

Astha comes to terms with her monotonous life when she meets Aijaaz (lmaaduddin Shah). Aijaaz’s liberal thoughts and lifestyle makes Astha realise the missing parts of her perfect married life. She falls for him and confesses her feelings. Aijaaz respectfully makes her understand his commitment to his wife Peeplika (Monica Dogra). 

After Aijaaz dies in a bomb blast, Astha and Peeplika begin to bond and spend more time together. Gradually, Astha and Peeplika fall in love and share their vulnerabilities together, except Peeplika refuse to reveal her past and the reason behind her strained relationship with her mother. Peeplika also begins to feel insecure and jealous of Astha’s marriage to Hemant. 

On Astha’s and Hemant’s 11th Wedding Anniversary, Babbo (Ayesha Raza Mishra) sees Astha and Peeplika getting intimate with each other and informs Hemant about the same. Hemant, a man conditioned in a homophobic society, confronts Astha saying that, since Peeplika is a woman he can forgive her because a woman by no means could have defiled his wife. 

Later, Astha confronts Hemant about his own infidelity in their marriage and decided to go to Paris for three-months with Peeplika and start a fresh life. 

Does Astha begin afresh, or her love story gets crushed at the crossroads or marriage, love, and her socially unacceptable sexuality?

Here is ‘The Married Woman’ ending explained in detail:

Final preparations

After Astha makes her decision of going to Paris with Peeplika, she is worried about her children’s reaction to her decision. She prepares them to be independent in daily chores and bids them farewell as they leave for their schools in the morning. 

Astha takes out photo albums of her children in pursuit of taking her children’s memories with her to Paris. She goes to Peeplika’s to help her pack and expresses her worries about whether her children would accept and understand what she did, and why she did it. 

Peeplika consoles her and assures her that they will accept and understand her completely, and that time will heal everything. Peeplika discusses what their life would be like in Paris. 

Soon, Peeplika’s mother (Divya Seth Shah) comes and reveals Peeplika’s past about falsely accusing her step-father of an accident, which killed one girl, that happened because of her (Peeplika’s) foolishness. Despite this, Astha decides to go to Paris with Peeplika.

Unmasking manipulations

After coming back from Peeplika’s, her mother-in-law informs Astha that Timsi’s (Samridhi Dewan) husband, Mudassar has been missing for three days. Astha offers her help to Babbo who is on his way to Timsi’s. 

Babbo tells Astha that it was because of her open-mindedness that Timsi ran away and married a man of another religion. She also reveals that, on Astha and Hemant’s anniversary, she saw her and Peeplika kissing each other. This revelation comes crashing down at her.

Babbo uncovers that Peeplika invited her to the balcony to share a drink so that she can catch both of them in the moment. She also mentions that while kissing Peeplika made eye-contact with her, showing she had purposefully invited her to the spot. 

Confrontation at crossroads

This shocking revelation upsets Astha and she goes to Peeplika to confront her. Peeplika admits that she did it on purpose to nudge Astha to make faster decisions about their lives together and that she wanted Astha to move away from Hemant. 

Astha felt manipulated and says that she cannot move from one manipulated relationship to another, where she is treated like a property. They have a heated argument and Peeplika says that she did all of it because she loves her and Hemant doesn’t. 

Astha refuses to enter another dishonest relationship, rather chooses to stay back in one where at least she could have her children close to her. 

Soon, the riots break out and curfew is imposed. Peeplika leaves for America, meanwhile, Astha calls Hemant to pick her up. Hemant comes crossing police barricades to get Astha back home. She moves back to her regular mundane life, performing all her required roles in an unhappy and shackling family set-up, within the boundaries of a secure patriarchal society.

Check out the title sequence of ‘The Married Woman’:


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