I barely consume OTT content despite subscribing to all the major platforms, which everyone in my circle benefits from. Sacred Games, Paatal Lok, Mirzapur — I have seen none of these, nor do I plan to.
There is, however, one show that has intrigued me since the trailer for the first season landed eight years ago. Despite the less-than-perfect first season and the merely passable second season, I could not wait for the third.
The latest season of Netflix’s anthology series, Lust Stories, I am happy to report, hits most, if not all of the spots.
Each season follows people grappling with lust and the lengths they go to in pursuit of their desires. What drew me into the series is that it puts female desire, raw and unabashed, at the forefront. In a culture where sex is often seen as something that men want and that women “give” in exchange for hope of the ultimate gift, marriage, women being unapologetic about what is a very human need makes Lust Stories all the more refreshing.
Be it Radhika Apte’s Kalindi exploring intimacy in an open marriage (S1) to Tillotama Shome’s Ishita finding her release in someone else’s union (S2), or Kiara Advani’s Megha (S1) finding her mojo in a vibrator (the series is said of have encouraged many women to invest in such devices) to Mrunal Thakur’s Veda (S2) confiding in her Dadi that she did not orgasm, Lust Stories’ women are not brushing aside sex as something that they do for men. They want to feel wanted and are taking the lead in making it happen.
And they don’t always have to look young and conventionally desirable while at it. I can still not forget the image of a very-much-in-her-middle-age Manisha Koirala emerging from the sea in a swimming costume, and without a tangible hint of makeup, as her lover outside marriage, the friend of her husband no less, sighs on with desire.
These women pursue pleasure, because they want it. Because it is as much a bodily need for them as it is for men. It is not something they are doing out of “majboori” or as a favour, or as a means to an end. Sana Thampi’s Lisa (in the brilliantly directed Kiran Rao chapter in S3) may be a little bit guilty of the latter but pleasure, again, was a very big part of why she was doing what she did.
My favourite part? I still can’t decide. While Apte’s Kalindi reminds me a little of myself — a woman not wanting to be inside a conventional box but still feeling all the conflicts and pain that convention brings — I want to be Koirala’s Reena as I grow older: A successful career woman who is comfortable in her skin, steals whatever frame she is in, and is not one to take all the blame for something in which she is just one of the participants.
I loved Apte’s Padma in S3 as she says “Hum Kandivali mein rehte hain” to Konkona Sen Sharma’s suggestion of a couple swap, and felt deeply for Radhika Madan’s Sailee (again S3) whose hunger for her husband doesn’t shield her from the painful realisation that love and lust may not always be enough.
But what surprised and delighted me the most is Aditi Rao Hydari’s Saira in Season 3. In Siddharth’s Badru, she has the romance-novel husband: They are very much in love and regularly make time for intimacy. But then, a Mills-and-Boons-type book makes her realise what she didn’t know she’d been missing. And so, she goes on to write her own story, quite literally. Because in Hyderabad, people make love in Hyderabadi Urdu. “English Nakko”, as she says in a fantasy.
And in weaving her fantasies, she helps the rest of us see the fantasies we didn’t know we had. Who could have thought that what we needed to fix 2026 was the sight of a towel-clad Siddharth? Move over, Ranbir Kapoor.
There is a scene where Saira gazes at Badru dusting off his Yamaha, shakes off a thousand dirty thoughts forming in her head, and goes: “Reham, mere miyaan. Reham (have mercy, my love)”. Us, Saira Jaan. Us.
The writer is assistant editor, The Indian Express. deepika.singh@expressindia.com
Siddharth and Aditi Rao Hydari in Vishal Bhardwaj's Lust Stories 3 segment. 
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