Abstract:
This article examines how vernacular OTT narratives in India invite a reconsideration of established analytical approaches,
taking Chiraiya as a focal case. Rather than approaching the series through pre-existing theoretical models alone, the discussion
develops what is described here as Post-Method Media Criticism (PMMC)—a flexible interpretive orientation that privileges context,
textual detail, and emergent meaning. Drawing, in part, on the conceptual vocabulary of post-method pedagogy, the study attends to
how the series constructs gendered and classed subjectivities through a restrained aesthetic marked by silence, duration, and minimal
action.
The analysis proceeds through close engagement with selected scenes, considering not only visual composition and performance but
also the role of sound, pacing, and episodic structure. What becomes apparent is a narrative mode that resists the urgency often
associated with streaming content. Instead, Chiraiya situates meaning within the ordinary—gestures, pauses, and everyday
negotiations—while remaining shaped, albeit unevenly, by platform conditions such as format and visibility.
The article suggests that such texts are not easily accommodated within conventional frameworks of realism or genre. PMMC is
proposed, therefore, not as a fixed method but as a way of reading that remains responsive to local specificity and formal variation. In
doing so, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions around digital media, vernacular storytelling, and the methodological demands
posed by increasingly heterogeneous narrative forms.