Season 3: Mother-Monster
Two seasons later, Aarya, with her Russian cigars and casual violence, is very much the boss. Where there was once distaste and fear for her family’s opium business, there is now an ambition to rule the criminal roost. “There’s no reward without risk,” she says, before taking on a Rs. 1000-crore heroin consignment.
There is an androgyny to how Aarya’s strength is expressed, fusing traditionally masculine as well as feminine depictions of power. She is both protector and nurturer to her children, her violence and viciousness intertwined with her tenderness and mercy; self-assured yet vulnerable at the same time. She oscillates between being a criminal kingpin and feeling apprehensive about the consequences of her choices. She is stubborn but not hard-headed, open to swallowing her pride and changing her mind. For instance, Aarya initially swears off her father’s wealth and resources, determined to forge her own path. Later, when in dire straits, Aarya has no qualms falling back on what had been left to her in her father’s will.
When aggressive men attempt to intimidate Aarya with their physicality, she stands her ground and looks them in the eye. She wields guns like they’re an extension of her own limbs, and makes difficult decisions, like sacrificing a loyal employee who also happens to be Aarya’s son’s pregnant girlfriend. “Sometimes, to protect her children, a mother must become a monster,” muses Aarya, her heart heavy but hard. As another character points out, “Rakshas (demon) and rakshak (protector) are two sides of the same coin.”
In sharp contrast to how the show viewed Aarya in the first and second season, there’s an ambivalence creeping in now as those around Aarya become unsure about her. Her children begin to distrust and feel alienated by her. When Aarya comes face-to-face with the man whose wife’s death is on her hands, he calls her an animal. The show remains sympathetic to Aarya, who is overcome by remorse for her actions. At one point she falls to her knees and admits, “These killings have to stop. I am the animal.” We see Aarya slowly coming to terms with the fact that being a sherni may just have come at the cost of her humanity.
Ultimately, the one goal Aarya has not lost sight of over three seasons is her children’s safety, which sometimes comes at the cost of their happiness or even their affection for her. For the things she’s done, Aarya has been called sherni, don and bitch, but it is the wry moniker she adopts for herself that feels most apt: “A working mother.”