The Devil You Know

Maharaj the maniac returns from the dead. But Nirupa notices something different about the man she fears with her life.

- Craig Falck

The last time widowed business-woman Nirupa (Jailoshini Naidoo)saw shady Maharaj (Jack Devnarain) was in 2019. “He blackmailed her into sleeping with him in exchange for family friend Zithulele’s (Raphael Griffith) freedom. But before she did ‘what she had to do’ to save this boy she had watched become a man, Maharaj was shot in the head,” says Jailoshini. So imagine her surprise in mid-January when she saw a man who looked like Maharaj. “Her first thought was fear. Maharaj was a monster, someone who’d do anything to get his end goal. But this man dresses differently, he’s in religious garb so maybe she’s seeing things,” adds the actress. And that’s where the real mystery begins…

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Maharaj approaches Nirupa and she’s frozen, says Jailoshini. “He seems meek and mild. He says that he recognizes her face but he doesn’t know her. He tells Nirupa that he has lost her memory but he wants to know her better.” Nirupa and Maharaj have a history – they went to varsity together and were very good friends. So she knows the good Maharaj and the evil one. “The last time she saw him, it was under difficult circumstances,” says the actress, adding that “she knows how devious he can be. She isn’t sure about this lost memory story because he could be lying and she may not know.” While she won’t give away how the story unfolds, Jailoshini will say that her onscreen daughter Shria (Kajal Maharaj) isn’t going to tolerate any potential bond-forming after discovering that Maharaj is alive. “Nirupa is vulnerable. She is at an all-time low. Her husband