The character of Swathi, played by the enigmatic Konkona Sen Sharma, in Killer Soup is intriguing. Swathi dreamt of a particular kind of life, but in a patriarchal setup, it was not very easy to win the trust of her own people and make them back her up. When the odds did not favor her, Swathi decided to take matters into her own hands, and she had no qualms about accepting the fact that she was not ready to compromise on the kind of life she wanted. So, let’s find out the kind of obstacles that came Swathi’s way, how she found herself in a mess, and what happened to her in the end.
Spoiler Alert
How did Prabhu’s death change Swathi?
Swathi, at the very beginning of Killer Soup, didn’t look like the kind of person who could kill. She did hide a lot of things from her husband, and she could conveniently lie to him at times, but murdering somebody was still out of her scope; at least, that’s what my perception was at the beginning. She had an affair with Umesh Pillai/Mahto, a guy with whom she worked as a nurse in the hospital and who was the masseuse in a spa where her husband used to go to on a daily basis. Swathi enjoyed being with Umesh, but the thought of permanently settling with him never crossed her mind. She was conditionally loyal to her husband, as he provided for her, and she knew that for the kind of lifestyle she wanted, she needed somebody who gave her financial stability. But Umesh was using this association for his own benefit, and he was trying to blackmail Prabhu for quite some time. Prabhu had looped in a private detective named Kiran Nadar to find out who this person was who was constantly asking for money and that’s when the detective got to know about Umesh’s and Swathi’s affair.
Whenever Swathi had to hide from her husband, she used the alias Manisha Koirala, be it for her cooking classes or her meetups with Umesh. She also had a secret phone, which she used to contact people secretly. On one such night, Swathi saw Kiran Nadar’s car parked at a distance, and though she didn’t know who he was, she realized that he was up to something. She went to his vehicle and tried to snatch his camera, and though she was able to do that, Kiran Nadar’s car was hit by a truck, and he died on the spot. It didn’t take long after that incident for Prabhu to catch his wife red-handed with Umesh. Prabhu had no clue whatsoever about what his wife was up to behind his back. Prabhu was not supposed to come home that day, but his brother Arvind refused to fund his venture, and he came back home frustrated, angry, and disappointed. Umesh was in the house that day, and Prabhu caught both lovers by surprise. He would have probably killed his wife that day if Umesh hadn’t intervened, but the surprising fact was that before the blow on his skull could kill him, Prabhu got a heart attack and died due to that.
How Did Swathi Get Rid Of Thupalli?
Assistant Sub-inspector Thupalli was not only a hard-working man, but he was also extremely intuitive. He had figured out that Manisha Koirala was none other than Swathi and that she was having an affair with Umesh. Swathi realized in Killer Soup that sooner or later, the police would conduct a crackdown at Umesh’s house, and they would find all sorts of evidence there. So she went to his place, gathered all the evidence, and went near the suicide point, where she and Umesh had buried Prabhu, to dispose of the evidence. But she was unlucky, as ASI Thupalli spotted her, and he followed her into the woods. It is an undeniable fact that Swathi wanted to push Thupalli off the cliff, but she wasn’t able to do that. Thupalli had things under his control, but he accidentally slipped off the cliff, and later, his body was found floating on the water. His fall came as a blessing in disguise for Swathi, who got her way without feeling guilty about doing the act herself.
How Did Swathi Frame Kirtima?
Framing Kirtima for crimes she hadn’t committed and making the authorities believe that she was the woman operating under the alias of Manisha Koirala was a masterful move on Swathi’s part. Senior Inspector Hassan was very close to revealing the fact that Swathi was Manisha Koirala, but before that could happen, Kirtima died under mysterious circumstances, and Hassan’s boss connected the dots and accepted that she was the one who had an affair with Umesh and who was trying to blackmail the Shetty family. Kirtima fell in love with Prabhu, and she had no clue that he had been killed and his doppelganger Umesh had taken his place. Umesh also fell for Kirtima at the end of Killer Soup, which made things even more difficult for Swathi. Kirtima had arrived unannounced at the Shetty household when Apeksha and Swathi were having a heated argument with Arvind. Kirtima recorded the entire incident where Arvind was shot by Apeksha, and she later used it to blackmail Swathi to divorce her husband, whom she believed to be Prabhu. Swathi called Kirtima to the California hotel construction site, and she called Lucas, too, to take care of matters. The idea was to kill Kirtima, but she was a Kalaripayattu expert, and she overpowered Lucas, who was probably twice her size. But once again, luck favored Swathi, and Kirtima fell from the building and died on the spot.
Is Swathi Dead Or Alive?
Swathi knew how to support those who came forward for her help. She made sure that Khansama was taken out of police custody after Hassan arrested her. Swathi had helped Apeksha at a point in time when she most needed it, even though she knew that, ultimately, she would be fulfilling her agenda, too. For Apeksha, it meant the world, and so after she inherited her father’s property, she made sure to return the favor. She gave Swathi the restaurant she always wanted, and the latter felt overwhelmed, as she hadn’t expected that. But the success party was spoiled when Umesh came to the forefront, and in a fit of rage, he told everyone who he was.
Swathi’s conscience, till that point, always harbored the illusion that she was not responsible for anyone’s death. In reality, if we take into consideration the actual physical act, then Swathi hadn’t killed anybody. But the point was that firstly, she had an intention to kill, and secondly, she pushed them to the point where they met with an accident and lost their lives. Swathi knew that from within, and she also realized that her game was over. She jumped from the cliff and gave her life, but then something very strange happened. She opened her eyes in the water, and in the last scene of Killer Soup, we saw her traveling in a bus with the love of her life, Umesh. Now, there could be a couple of possibilities here: firstly, director Abhishek Chaubey wanted to end things in a poetic manner, and he showed that in the imaginary world, maybe in the afterlife, the two lovers united and lived the life they craved. The second possibility could be that Swathi had actually managed to fake her death and not drowned in the river so that the authorities stopped chasing her and she could live the rest of her life in peace, just like she had planned in the beginning when she was about to elope with Umesh. I am more inclined to believe that Swathi drowned in the water and that what we saw at the end was just a dream sequence and nothing else.
