Indrani Kothari, played by the ever-alluring Raveena Tandon, is the foundation of the series Karmma Calling. She is the one who set the wheels in motion for Karma to react to, literally and figuratively. Through some brief flashbacks and some conversations, a rough picture of Indrani’s past can be gauged, which may help the audience understand why she betrayed Satyajit and if she is really a good person stuck in difficult circumstances.
Indrani had an affair with Kaushal when he was married to his first wife, and that is probably how Indrani became the second wife. A guess is that she met Satyajit after she moved to Alibaug to start her new life. Indrani and Satyajit had a conversation where he said that he had given her a ring many years ago, and he was surprised to see it on her finger even then. Indrani had said that she never took it off of her hand. This leads us to speculate that perhaps Indrani and Satyajit were in love, but they had to go their separate ways, probably because of Indrani’s ambitions or some other reasons. But they never stopped being in love. Seeing how Indrani is still wearing the ring in the present day, Satyajit is the only person she ever loved. That makes one wonder why she worked so hard to put him in jail. Whenever Kaushal and Indrani discuss him, there doesn’t seem to be a doubt that it was all Indrani’s idea and was executed according to her wishes. Yet, there are some discrepancies in the narrative.
The question to ask is whether it was really Indrani’s idea to frame Satyajit for the scam. This could go in two directions, but before that, there is something crucial to understand about Indrani: she was a social climber. The fact that she had an affair with Kaushal and married him despite not being in love with him showed that she was simply securing a better and more prosperous future for herself. Even in the present day, Indrani doesn’t love Kaushal, and whenever she berates him for his affairs, it is because she doesn’t want anything to jeopardize their facade of an ideal couple, which is a huge part of their social capital.
If Indrani had come up with the idea to frame Satyajit, she may have thought that this would be temporary, and she could get him out of jail later by proving him innocent. This way, she would be protecting herself and the Kothari name, along with the person she loved. One more possibility is that Indrani and Satyajit may have been planning to elope, in which case Indrani may not have wanted to leave behind the riches that she had fought so hard for. Indrani may have been involved in the scam as a way to increase her personal wealth, which she would later share with Satyajit. But something probably went wrong, and Satyajit ended up needing to take the fall for it in a way that Indrani couldn’t protect him.
In the present day, Indrani was shown to hate Muzammil Sayyed, the lawyer who had fought against Satyajit all those years ago. Indrani had wanted to prove Satya’s innocence, but that had not come to fruition because of Kaushal and Muzammil. The latter had become a national hero with the case, but it was Kaushal’s coercion that had made Indrani change sides. This is why she tolerated Muzammil to this day, despite her strong dislike of him. He was no different from the others, like Kaushal Kothari or Nikhil Sethia, but Indrani never had any express use for him, and those were Muzammil’s words that had been the final nail in the coffin of Satyajit. Indrani was a lot of things, but she wasn’t self-sacrificing. If she gave up on Satyajit, it must have been to protect herself. Maybe Kaushal threatened to expose her truth or promised her a much better life if she stayed with him. It is entirely possible that Indrani was pregnant with her daughter at that time, which is why she chose her marriage. During Dayama’s expose, Indrani was talking about how she had been conflicted about having her second child. Was it because she was in the middle of this scam? Is it possible that the said daughter is Satyajit’s child and not Kaushal’s? Was it the desire for a life away from scandal for her children that made her stay back with Kaushal? After all, if Indrani had chosen Satyajit, she would have had to stay hidden from society with him and her children, which went against everything she had worked for. Perhaps all Indrani could do in the aftermath of the scam was take care of Ambika, but it was never made clear as to how Indrani chose to do that.
One last possibility is that Indrani never planned on Satyajit being framed for the scam. Yet, in the present day, everyone, including Indrani, has repeatedly said that she was responsible for Satyajit’s life being ruined. Not once has Indrani countered that Kaushal blackmailed her with something or that she would have chosen differently if not for her husband and children. Maybe she will say that in season 2 of Karmma Calling, and that will change everything, but in case that doesn’t happen, perhaps Indrani just chose the easy way out. Maybe she never intended to leave Kaushal, and her relationship with Satyajit was just stealing a bit of happiness that came her way. Maybe she was not a part of the scam, or perhaps she was but did not wish to involve Satyajit, but when given a choice between her current lifestyle and him, she chose the former. Any promise she made to Satyajit to be with him or protect him could have been the result of one of her weaker moments. This is what makes her a truly bad person and justifies the karma she is getting.
There is one more possibility, but this one is a little tricky. Maybe Indrani really did love Satyajit, and he was a part of her life in the past before she met Kaushal. However, when she was having an affair with him, it could have been an elaborate honey trap to frame him for the scam, except that Indrani had blurred the line between real and fake love.
Kaushal is not blind to the fact that Indrani has always loved Satyajit, but he certainly made use of that love, which is why he and Indrani are unable to let go of each other despite a terrible marriage because they are connected by such secrets. This would also conclusively explain why everyone is able to blame Indrani so easily because she wasn’t ever truthful with Satyajit. What actually happened between Indrani and Satyajit is the most exciting part of the mystery that is to be unraveled.
