I don't care if you are Indian or not, you need to watch 'Made In Heaven'.
It is a show that is being praised for its incisive evaluation of Indian weddings beyond the glitter and glee. It also builds a multilinear narrative about class disparity, gender roles, and sexuality through the personal and professional lives of its lead characters – Tara and Karan – two Delhi-based wedding planners.
Bringing such flawed characters to screen and making them even more vulnerable without ever gnawing at their frailties is something that we do not experience too often, especially in South Asia. This show is not afraid to go and find the gritty and make the viewers come out and relate to these grey characters. Most television revolves around one-dimensional characters, the hero, the villain, and the damsel in distress and in the end, how the hero triumphs, good wins and we can all go home.
This show makes you re-evaluate your moral viewpoint on many so-called taboo issues and does it in such a brilliant way that keeps your attention in every line.
Masterfully, 'Made in Heaven' weaves the intertwining narratives of its main players – Tara Khanna, Karan Mehra, Adil Khanna, Faiza Naqvi, Jaspreet Kaur, Kabir Basrai, Ramesh Gupta and Nawab Khan – around the backdrop of roughly 10 marriages, each one making a distinct, subtle statement on archaic, or in some cases, modern, yet superficial, traditions of our society.
One of the very first things I noticed about this show is that Mehra's sexual orientation is never exploited to arouse sympathy, which is the stereotypical way of gaining attention for queer characters in South Asian context. Rather, his identity is normalized in a way that is in agreement with this series' exquisite writing, scattered with metaphors on love and loss, and lyrical imagery that allows us to soak into the details.
'Made in Heaven' is also an achievement because it gives us an imperfect, incomplete woman as its lead in the face of Khanna, whose closet is filled with more skeletons of her past than the branded clothes and accessories that she dons to mask her true identity. She is a genuinely complex character that makes you feel everything she is going through.
Another noteworthy character is Kabir Basrai played by Shashank Arora who is the shadow of the series: you may forget about him but he is always present. His analysis of each marriage at the end of each episode is one of the best parts of the show and every word he speaks is very impactful like.
Above all, the show addresses the hypocrisy of Indian weddings and focuses on topics which are hard to talk about for many people: abortion, dowry, rape, honor killings, homosexuality, infidelity, impotence, and many more.
One of the most powerful moments of the show was when Pooja, a side character, agrees to take the money and keep quiet about her sexual assault, Karan lashes out on her but Tara supports her, without judgment. Because Tara is open to understanding the place the young girl is coming from and when Karan lashes out "You are a woman, for God's sake," Tara replies "Which is why I will not judge her."
Entertaining, humorous, insightful, and realistic in equal terms, Made In Heaven is a show where you are emotionally invested in the characters, and the stories being unfurled.
Decider calls Made in Heaven "a fun watch" and says it's a show you should absolutely stream. They cite the "interesting insight into modern Indian life, especially when traditions run up against millennials' ambition and desire to go their own way" as one of the reasons you should not miss this series.
On the face of it, it delves into the chaos that goes behind planning fancy weddings. But at the heart of it, it's a story that presents the insecurities, traumatic incidents, ambitions, and idiosyncrasies that shape an individual's life.
In my opinion, this is the best series to come out of India, setting a masterly criterion that will be hard to beat for its successors.
