Amazon Prime’s Khauf has taken Indian horror to new heights by perfectly blending supernatural possession with relevant themes like patriarchy and male oppression. The twisted ending of the show is bound to leave you with a major question, which would be whether Madhu, our lead character, is still being possessed by the ghost of Jeeva or not. A second season might answer that, but since that’s not happening anytime soon, we’re going to take a swing at clarifying what really happened. I should tell you right away that whatever you read in this article is only speculation and theories based on what we’ve seen in the show.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the end?
Before getting into it, let us just rehash the ending of Khauf for a moment. After Jeeva’s ghost leaves Madhu, it takes another host—Hakim. But then Madhu chops Hakim’s head off, effectively making way for Lana, Rima, and Komal to get out of the hostel. However, we see Nakul is traumatized by guilt, and in the end he sees a ghost and kills himself. The show ends with Madhu looking at the audience with a look in her eyes that suggests she’s still possessed.
Is Madhu still possessed?
My answer would be yes. Given Hakim is dead, Jeeva’s spirit is going to need a new host, and there’s every chance of it getting back into Madhu’s body again. But then how did the girls get out of the hostel? Well, Jeeva may be inside Madhu’s body, but this time around, it’s Madhu controlling the spirit and using it at her will. That’s why Jeeva can’t harm the other girls, and they can leave peacefully. And Madhu can also use Jeeva to scare Nakul so much that her rapist kills himself. It would be poetic justice if that’s the case—Madhu, a sexual assault victim, using Jeeva, a perpetrator, as a weapon. However, this might also take a toll on her and alter her personality. We might learn more about that if we get another season of Khauf.
But can it be something else?
Here’s where I’m going to stretch my imagination a bit. Let us just assume Jeeva is gone for good. Given Hakim’s head is gone, we can say that the spirit is stuck inside his body and can never get out. However, in the world of Khauf, where the supernatural very much exists, death is never the end—especially when it comes to the death of a terrible man. Speaking of which, let us take the example of Hakim here. What if Hakim’s spirit got out and took Madhu as it’s host? If we entertain this theory, then it’s Hakim who is responsible for Nakul’s death. But the man was no good when he was alive. He was a serial killer who took the lives of so many young women, so why would he suddenly try to give Madhu justice? The simplest answer here would be that Madhu is controlling the ghost, like the last theory. Just in this case, the ghost is of Hakim and not Jeeva’s.
But what if Madhu is not controlling Hakim’s spirit and going through the same struggle as before? Given we have seen only one scene—the hospital one—we can’t tell for sure. If we accept this theory, then Hakim is indeed helping Madhu by getting justice. Why would he do that? Well, here’s where things get tricky. If you think about it, Hakim did all those terrible things only to survive. He kept saying that he didn’t have much time and it was important for him to survive. The man was no doubt evil, but he was not exactly a sexual predator. Now that he is dead, there’s no reason for him to harm Madhu or any women. He did try to help Lana get out of the hostel, if you remember. Even though that was for his own benefit, it still counts. This is way too far-fetched as a theory, though, and most likely not the case.
What was Hakim’s deal?
Since we are talking about Hakim, let us take a bit of a detour and discuss his curse. From the very first moment, the show establishes that Hakim is dying from something. His skin is rotting, and there are several wounds all over his body. That has to be the result of the curse. One might wonder why this show doesn’t delve into the character’s backstory and tell us what the curse is all about. But then, the central theme of the show is patriarchy, acute sexism, and violence against women. Narrative-wise, it is not really necessary to explore Hakim’s past. The character is exciting for sure, and the veteran Rajat Kapoor has done a tremendous job portraying it. But Hakim is a tool that takes the story forward and also adds an edge to it. We do get a bit of a tease when he lures a kid—the girl named Guddi—into his house for no good, presumably, but we never learn what happened to the little girl. Maybe this has something to do with the curse. Another season of Khauf might provide us some answers to these questions about Hakim, but for now, this is all we have.
Does Madhu have supernatural abilities now?
This is the wildest theory I’m going to come up with. Hear me out here, Madhu is not possessed by any ghost. Both Jeeva and Hakim are dead. But whatever happened has given her some kind of supernatural power, thanks to which she got to punish Nakul. Since this is a world where the natural and supernatural both coexist, this can very well be the case. To put things into perspective, Madhu kind of deserves something after what she has gone through. A sexual assault victim is never really free of the trauma, but what if the person ends up getting a leg up for the rest of their life? Maybe by providing Madhu that, the showrunner is engaging in a bit of wish fulfillment; who knows?
