Two Indian half-sisters are the talk of 'Bridgerton' — and of modern-day India, too
Two brown-skinned women are the talk of 19th century England in the second season of the globally streaming Netflix hit series Bridgerton.
They're the talk of 21st century India as well.
They're Kate (played by Simone Ashley) and Edwina Sharma (Charithra Chandran), who arrive in the U.K. with their mother Mary in search of love and marriage.
In the Bridgerton universe, Mary is the daughter of the Earl of Sheffield and his Indian wife. We learn that when Mary was ready for marriage, she was declared a "diamond" by the queen (who bestows this title on eminently marriageable women to elevate their prospects).
But Mary made an unconventional choice. Instead of marrying a man with a title and wealth, she ran away to India with an ordinary Indian tradesman whom she's fallen in love with. He had a daughter — Kanthani (called Kate) — from a previous marriage. Mary's defiance and elopement humiliated her parents – not because she married a dark-skinned man but because she married outside of the upper crust of English society.
