What is Heaven?
“Made In Heaven” written by Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti and Alankrita Shrivastava explicates the preconceived notions of Heaven in Indian society and subverts these notions entirely throughout the series. In India, perfect matchmaking is considered to be heaven, a heterosexual girl with fair skin and high caste is considered to be heavenly and lovely, an obedient girl who adheres to all the norms of society is equivalent to the Goddess of Heaven, a chauvinist male who wields power over his wife is still elevated at some places to the stature of God, wealth is believed to provide people with an essence of heaven.
“Made In Heaven” is the name of a wedding planning company run by two titular characters of the series Tara Khanna played by Sobhita Dhulipala and Karan Mehra played by Arjun Mathur. The series perfectly depicts the extravagance and glitz of upper class Indian society through their weddings but vehemently critiques the prejudices lurking within these societies- “All that glitters is not gold”.
The series renewed for a second season this year and personally, it reached upto my expectations.
Show Delves Deep Into Various Ways Indian Society Suppresses
All the characters in the series are morally conflicted but are trying to redeem themselves from the pangs of their suffering. While Karan is grappling with the equations he shares with his homophobic sick mother, who never accepted him for who he is, Tara is trying to secure her fortunes through her divorce in order to maintain her status quo.
A new addition to the second season is Bulbul Jauhari played by Mona Singh, the new auditor of the company and wife of Ramesh Jauhari, who is a victim of domestic violence in her first marriage and struggles to rear her teenage son who manages to get himself enmeshed in the trouble of molesting a girl at his school, Meher, the new production head of the company played by Trinetra Haldar who being a transgender woman takes complete pride in her identity and fights against the scorns for her acceptance in the society.
The narrator or the detached observer echoing Philip Larkin’s poetry is Kabir, played by Shashank Arora, who shoots all the weddings with a social commentary at the end of each wedding; however, he is himself stuck between chasing his passion and fulfilling the dreams of his parents, his open relationship with Jazz played by Shivani Raghuvanshi and Jazz wanting to share a committed relationship with him.
While Jazz, on the other hand, has to make a choice between her long-time lover Nadeem who being a mere mechanic, has always been there for her through thick and thin and her colleague cum boyfriend Kabir, with whom she desires to live the life of her dreams. Her reality is grim too, as she hails from a lower middle-class family, is the sole breadwinner of her family and faces extreme financial problems when she tries to gather money for the treatment of her drug addict brother in a good rehab.
All wedding planners are entangled in their own dilemmas. Still, despite this fact, the writers of the series make each of the characters their mouthpiece in certain instances to break free from the societal shackles that have tied us together into an abyss of despair for centuries.
The second season deals with caste discrimination, racism, adultery, polygamy, gender bias and drug issues through ten episodes. All the episodes are well written and make us delve deep into the instruments of suppression still prevalent in our society.
However, the characters of Faiza, played by Kalki Koechlin, and Adil Khanna, played by Jim Sarbh, definitely deserved more screen space. The cinematography is top notch especially the mirror sequences where the characters stare at their own reflections, and the dichotomy between the real and the virtual image portrays their inner conflicts. Some of the titular characters, like Tara and Karan though, successfully resolve their conflicts, but the other characters, like Kabir and Jazz, are yet to resolve, which might be an anticipation of a new season in the upcoming years.
Subverting And Redefining The Notions Of Heaven
The heaven in the poster of the series itself is an inverted image of the word that serves as the culmination of the difference between appearance and reality, which shapes the entire narrative. All the brides of this season, starting from episode one to ten, even though are financially independent but are victims of patriarchy, victims of their belief in heaven that is marriage and their acceptance in society.
While some of them, like Pallavi, Kriti, Radhika, Aditi and Shehnaz, break free from societal beliefs with their head held high and don’t part with their dignity as a woman, others, like Adhira, Sarina even after their subjugation endures everything and gets married believing their love will be enough.
MIH preaches this notion that heaven isn’t perfect, heaven is heavily flawed, and that’s humane as no human being is perfect. The series breaks the illusion of heaven we all bask in and makes us question-” Is the illusion enough for the sustenance of a relationship?”, and “Is love enough for a relationship?”
“Heaven doesn’t always ordain a companion for us
Some of us have to travel alone”
Heaven doesn’t always lie in marriage, and love isn’t always a yardstick to measure one’s well-being. Heaven can lie in the unwavering friendship Karan and Tara share, in the relationship Karan and Nawab share (whose support saved Karan from the shady world of gambling and drugs), in the temporal moments of fleeting joy, personal victories and at times in letting go. Heaven can never be whole, there can always be a void in heaven, yet we should cherish the moments when we feel belonging and validation.
MIH might seem overwritten but then it deals with various issues that are unfortunately very much rooted in the society we reside in. The series depicts that the same prejudices unite the rich and the poor of our society. Every human being is a beautiful blend of black and white, no one is a saint in this world, and everybody is a sinner in some way or the other.
Everyone possesses varying levels of greed for power and wealth in order to be a social climber, and most importantly, since we are all evolving, we are constantly struggling to figure out who we are and what we want from our lives, and that’s perfectly fine.
Audience Reception
“Made In Heaven” presents us with the story of a world the middle-class Indian society is always curious to know about. The news of the world of riches, the world of glam and shine, always attracts the audience since this world is considered to be heavenly, an idyllic or paradisal world that serves as the ideal for commoners, and the makers of the series use a similar kind of plot with a stellar cast to grab all the attention of the audience.
The audience initially feels enthralled to witness the profligacy and politics of rich upper-class Indian societies but gradually, when their illusion of heaven is torn apart, they realize that all their issues are similar, and that’s the beauty of this series, that the journey of the characters isn’t theirs alone, it’s the journey of the viewers as well from the other side of the screen who can relate to their predicaments, therefore making it an exhilarating experience for the audience.
Srilekha Mitra
@mitra__srilekha_