Chiraiya Web Series Review | Suchin Mehrotra | THR India

Suchin Mehrotra reviews Chiraiya for The Hollywood Reporter India, a six-episode JioHotstar series from writer-showrunner Divy Nidhi Sharma and director Shashant Shah. Suchin finds the opening episode bursting with promise — its synthetic, overly processed feel-good family imagery seems poised to subvert itself and reveal something darker. He draws a comparison to the American show Kevin Can Go Fuck Himself for its dual-toned approach, but notes that Chiraiya never delivers on that ambition. Instead, Suchin feels it settles into a preachy, PSA-style narrative that spoonfeeds its messaging on consent and marital rape rather than weaving it organically through storytelling — something Divy's earlier co-writing credit on Laapataa Ladies managed far more effectively.

Suchin highlights the series' structural issues, particularly the decision to centre Divya Dutta's Kamlesh as protagonist, which inadvertently reduces Prasanna Bisht's Pooja — the actual victim — to a plot device. He does single out Siddharth Shaw's performance as Arun, calling the character the most fleshed-out in the series — not a calculating villain but an entitled man-child whose warped understanding of love makes him all the more haunting. Suchin also flags his discomfort with the male creative team behind a female empowerment narrative, and notes the lack of a substantive plot across six episodes. His verdict: Chiraiya is a well-intentioned but heavy-handed social drama that struggles to convert its rallying cry into genuinely engaging storytelling.