Don't expect fairy tales: Ridhi Dogra's brutal note amid Twisha, Deepika deaths

As conversations around the deaths of Twisha Sharma in Bhopal and Deepika Nagar in Noida continue to shake the country, actor Ridhi Dogra has posted a hard-hitting note on marriage, feminism and the dangerous illusions young people are still being sold in the name of love and family.

Without directly commenting on the ongoing investigations, Dogra addressed what she described as a deeper social crisis: the refusal to accept that marriage, gender roles and expectations have fundamentally changed, while society continues to push outdated ideas of sacrifice, obedience and dependency.

Marriage as fairytale?

“Please stop romanticising marriage,” she wrote bluntly, addressing “young girls and boys” in a long Instagram note that arrived amid public outrage over allegations of dowry harassment and cruelty in both cases.

The actor argued that many marriages today are collapsing under the weight of expectations inherited from an older generation. She said this idea of marriage doesn't reflect the reality young couples live in. "The age of your parents and the world they grew up in has expired," she wrote, stressing that women today are financially and socially empowered in ways previous generations were not.

“Girls don’t need marriage for survival,” Dogra said, adding that companionship cannot come at the cost of individuality. Her words cut directly into the still-prevalent idea that women must mould themselves around a husband or a family structure to keep a marriage intact.

At the same time, the 41-year-old also turned her attention towards women, warning against expecting men to magically transform into “Prince Charming” after marriage. She described modern relationships as emotionally unprepared spaces where both men and women are struggling to adjust to rapidly shifting social realities.

What is a marriage?

Her note repeatedly returned to one central idea: marriage without mutual respect, emotional maturity and personal independence is a dangerous bargain.

“Don’t expect any fairy tale,” she wrote. “Educate yourself. Live for yourself. Stand up for yourself," she added.

Dogra also took aim at the collective nature of Indian marriages, arguing that too many relationships become overcrowded by family interference and societal pressure. “A respectful union of marriage is between two. Never more,” she wrote, in what many online viewed as one of the strongest lines from her post.

On feminism, the actor attempted to pull the conversation away from online gender wars and back towards equality itself. “True feminism is just equality,” she wrote, adding that advocating for women should never mean dismissing the mental health struggles of men.

Her post arrived at a time when the deaths of Twisha Sharma and Deepika Nagar have reignited difficult conversations around dowry, emotional abuse, marital pressure and the silent suffering many women continue to endure inside homes often projected as “respectable”.

Twisha Sharma and Deepika Nagar cases:

Twisha Sharma was found dead under suspicious circumstances at her matrimonial home in Bhopal on May 12. Her family has accused her husband Samarth Singh and his mother of dowry harassment and cruelty, though a post-mortem conducted at AIIMS Bhopal reportedly termed the death a suicide caused by hanging.

In a separate case, 24-year-old Deepika Nagar allegedly died by suicide after what her family described as sustained mental torture and demands for additional dowry at her matrimonial home in Noida. Police later arrested her husband and father-in-law as part of the investigation.

Against this backdrop, Dogra’s note did not offer easy answers or direct outrage. It questioned the very foundation on which many modern marriages are still built: obedience mistaken for love, endurance mistaken for strength, and dependency mistaken for commitment.