It's okay to drop the ball and not feel responsible for all of it
In a culture where motherhood has long been enshrined as a woman's highest calling, a new theatrical work by actor Kalki Koechlin dares to speak what has largely gone unspoken — the grief, the identity loss, the invisible suffering woven into the experience of bearing and raising children. 'Belly of the Beast,' premiering in Delhi, does not reject the profound meaning of motherhood so much as insist that its full truth be told. It arrives at a moment when Indian women, long expected to carry both the labor and the silence, are beginning to find language for what they have always known.
- A culture that sacralizes motherhood has left generations of women without words for their own suffering — postpartum depression, miscarriage grief, and identity erosion treated as ingratitude rather than reality.
- The numbers are unsparing: 69% of urban Indian women are kept out of the workforce by childcare and housework, against just 1% of men, a disparity that a single scene in the play captures with devastating quietness.
- Koechlin wrote her source book during Covid lockdown while struggling with postpartum depression in isolation, and found upon emerging that the pain she could barely name was, in fact, universal among mothers.
- The production met its Delhi audience not with despair but with humor and pace, earning a standing ovation — suggesting the hunger for this honesty runs deeper than the taboo that has suppressed it.
- Actor Shruti Vyas brought her own miscarriage onto the stage, transforming the reflexive 'I'm fine' into a public declaration that invisible pain is still pain — and the audience, in Delhi, answered back in agreement.
Kalki Koechlin has built a career in Bollywood, but it was the months after giving birth — isolated during Covid lockdown, struggling with postpartum depression, unable to name what she was experiencing — that produced her most urgent work. Her 2021 book, written in that fog, has now become 'Belly of the Beast,' a play co-created with theatre director Sheena Khalid that follows five women through pregnancy, labour, and early motherhood without softening what it finds there.
In India, where motherhood is framed as sacred duty and a woman's highest fulfillment, the play's honesty is a form of defiance. Koechlin describes a cultural conversation fixated on the gift and beauty of motherhood, one that leaves no room for the grief, the identity loss, or the sheer exhaustion that accompany it. When the lockdown ended and she began speaking to other mothers, she discovered that her experience, however isolating it had felt, was widely shared in its essential shape.
The production does not dwell in darkness for its own sake. Delhi audiences responded to its humor and rhythm, the way it moved through difficult material without being consumed by it. One scene — a husband returning home tired, asking his wife about her day, receiving a mumbled 'I just looked after the baby' — lands with quiet devastation. Behind it sit government figures showing that childcare and housework exclude roughly 69 percent of urban Indian women from the workforce. For men, the figure is 1 percent.
The play's treatment of miscarriage carries particular weight. Actor Shruti Vyas drew on her own loss, and the experience of being told she looked fine — as though grief owed the world visibility. Her character's arc moves from performed composure to a simple, trembling admission: 'I'm not okay, and that should be okay, right?' When she said it in Delhi, the audience answered. That exchange — between stage and crowd, between private pain and public acknowledgment — may be the most honest thing the play achieves.
Kalki Koechlin sits across from you and says something that stops the conversation cold: we take mothers for granted. Raising children is a thankless job. And if we were honest about how exhausting it really is, how mind-numbing and transformational and grief-stricken, mothers might simply walk away. Society would collapse. So we don't talk about it. We walk on eggshells instead.
This is the problem that Koechlin, a Bollywood actor, and Sheena Khalid, a theatre director, set out to examine in their new play, Belly of the Beast. Adapted from Koechlin's 2021 book The Elephant in the Womb—written in the months after she gave birth, during the Covid lockdown—the production takes an unflinching look at what motherhood actually feels like when the cameras are off and the congratulations have stopped. It follows five women at different stages of the journey: pregnancy, labour, the early years with young children. It shows the bodily changes, the sleepless nights, the collision between work demands and domestic life. And it does not look away from the harder truths—abortion, miscarriage, postpartum depression.
In India, where marriage and motherhood are framed as the ultimate goal, a sacred duty, a woman's highest calling, this kind of honesty is radical. "Women are rarely allowed to express the dark feelings," Koechlin told the BBC. "The conversation in India is all about the gift of motherhood and how beautiful motherhood is and how blessed we are to be mothers. But that life-giving process is so transformational that there is a certain part of you that's also grieving and losing identity." She wrote the book during isolation, struggling with postpartum depression, unable to meet other mothers, unable to name what she was experiencing. When the lockdown ended and she began talking to other women, she found something unexpected: a universality. The challenges were different in detail but the same in shape. Every mother knew something about what she was describing.
The play premiered in Delhi to a standing ovation. Despite the weight of its subject matter—two hours and ten minutes of heavy material—audiences responded to its pace and humour, the way it eased in and out of difficult moments rather than drowning in them. One scene captures something most Indian mothers would recognize instantly: a husband returns from work tired but with a story to tell. He asks his wife how her day went. She opens her mouth and mumbles: "I just looked after the baby." The numbers behind that small moment are stark. According to government data, childcare and housework keep roughly 69 percent of urban women out of the labour force in India. For men, the figure is 1 percent. Mothers who do work face a different kind of pressure—the expectation to be a "supermum," to excel both at the office and at home, to be the CEO of the household at all times, to never drop the ball.
Koechlin speaks about the pressure women place on themselves, the way she finds herself calling her daughter's nanny from the middle of a film shoot to organize meals, driven by an expectation of perfection that she knows is impossible. "But I think allowing for the fathers or other family members to fill in that space is important," she says. "We wanted to let women know that if we do that, everything isn't going to fall apart. It's okay to drop the ball and not feel like you are responsible for all of it."
The play's most powerful theme is miscarriage. In a country of nearly two billion people, the inability to have children carries profound social stigma. A woman who loses a baby does not grieve alone—she carries shame, pity, the weight of others' discomfort. Shruti Vyas, who plays a young woman struggling to conceive, drew on her own experience. When she miscarried, people told her she looked fine, as if grief should be visible on the face. "It's one of those common things that people say," she reflected. "I understand sometimes they say it because they're awkward and don't know what is the right thing to say. Also people don't know exactly what is the right time for grieving." She wanted to tell the world that it was okay to not be okay, that invisible pain was still pain. In the play, her character moves from saying "don't worry, I'm fine" to saying "actually, I'm not okay, and that should be okay, right?" When she spoke those words in Delhi, the audience answered back: yes, it should be.
Citas Notables
Women are rarely allowed to express the dark feelings—the difficulties they face, the hormonal changes they go through, the loss of identity or postpartum depression.— Kalki Koechlin
It's okay to not be fine as well. If someone is not looking fine, don't tell them you're fine.— Shruti Vyas, on miscarriage and grief
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does a play about motherhood feel like such a risk in India specifically?
Because motherhood isn't treated as a human experience there—it's treated as a sacred duty, a woman's highest purpose. To say it's hard, that it breaks you, that you grieve parts of yourself, sounds almost like blasphemy. The cultural narrative is so locked into celebration that there's no room for the truth.
But women must be talking about these things privately, in kitchens, with friends.
Of course. That's exactly the point. It's happening everywhere, silently. The play just brings it into the light. It says: this suffering you thought was yours alone, this shame you thought you deserved—it's universal. You're not broken.
The statistic about 69 percent of women kept out of work by childcare—that's not just about motherhood, is it?
No. It's about who bears the weight of keeping society running. Men are 1 percent. The difference isn't biology. It's expectation, and the fact that those expectations are invisible, treated as natural rather than chosen.
Koechlin talks about being a "supermum." Does the play suggest that's impossible?
It suggests it's a trap. The play doesn't tell women to stop trying. It tells them it's okay to fail at the impossible, to let other people in, to admit that you can't do it all. That's the radical part—permission to be human.
What about the miscarriage scenes? That seems like the deepest taboo.
It is. Because a miscarriage is grief without a socially acceptable way to grieve. The baby wasn't born, so some people think the loss isn't real. The mother knows better. The play gives that grief a stage, literally. It says: your pain is visible now, whether you look fine or not.