Made in Heaven, the web series on Amazon Prime Video, really reflects the hypocrisy of the Indian society in our face. As an Indian, it made me ask a critical question as to what will it take for our society to move from hypocrisy to genuineness. The Indian society has always been very harsh towards the marginalised sections of the society, and the series was able to rightly show it for us to reflect and understand the need to change.
The protagonists in the series rightly showed the struggle for acceptance and belongingness that each one of us go through while traversing the path of personal and professional life. The struggles of some people who are marginalised — on the basis of gender, class or sexual orientation — in an urban setting in a globalised world are constantly increasing. These struggles will definitely shape the social, economic and political narrative of the new India in the near future.
The series very beautifully showcases the gender war, class war, and the war fought against society to legitimise sexual identity. The idea of using the Indian wedding (elite wedding), which is one of the important parts of the Indian life, as the medium to narrate these struggles is really unique. If you need to see the hypocritical as well as a genuine part of Indian families, then I think an Indian wedding is the right platform for you to observe and reflect upon.
The series with its nine episodes shows the hypocrisy and genuine outlook of Indian mentality very well. Made in Heaven exposes our “vulgar obsession with social perceptions, our all-consuming desire to be seen as belonging in an exclusive bracket, our raging need for upward social mobility.” The series also shows the growing inequality in wealth within the Indian society, and the impact on the lives of each one of us.
The series also touched upon our constant inner struggle between our so-called traditional values and the liberal life that we want to live. “Tara Khanna, who’s had a less-than-middle-class upbringing, is in a constant struggle to blend in a wealthy household and the high society. For Jaspreet, the struggle is to fit into the mould of a work environment that’s far removed from her reality. For Karan, it’s acceptance, not just from family, but from society, while for Adil and Fayza, who inhabit the top column of the economic food chain, it’s the quest to find mental peace – they are both financially well-off but immensely lonely.”
The series very well tackles important aspects of our struggles: “elitism, sexual abuse, toxic masculinity, celebrity entitlement, infidelity, the broken marriage, closeted existence” with great sensitivity and understanding.
While watching the series, I could feel constant pain in my heart, a subtle sadness throughout. Though the show was about marriages, a happy occasion, there are rarely any happy weddings in it, except one, where a couple in their 60s gets married. The rest of the marriages were a naked showcase of patriarchal norms. In fact, the series name, ‘Made in Heaven’, was full of sarcasm on the idea of marriage – an age-old construct dictated entirely by patriarchal norms and one where women are at the receiving end of sexist ideas perpetuated by seemingly “woke” and “progressive” families.
I feel the series is a brilliant showcase of the damage that has been caused to our Indian society (and the world at large) due to strong patriarchal sentiments that govern our socialisation process. The series interestingly portrays men as both perpetrators as well as victims of patriarchy, especially Vinay Pathak’s character of Guptaji, who leads one of the most understated yet powerful tracks of the show.
Besides this, the series also reveals the age-old plot of how sexual impotency of men ends up directing their rage towards women. The series blatantly points out the horrific ways in which women are conditioned to appease to male entitlement and the cost of their rebellion if there’s any. While watching those episodes, I always had that frustrating moment when I hopelessly felt if the world will change or whether the manifestation of patriarchy will change with time.
The voice-over of Shashank Arora at the end of every episode was chilling as it could summarise the moral of each episode. It was really reflective and expressed a summary of every episode.
Tanul Thakur, in his article for The Wire, rightly says that the series “sees the world from a tower so tall that the rest of the world shrinks dot-like, magnifying the hypocrisies, prejudice and retrograde mindsets of the affluent.”
I find that us Indians need to get educated, and not just literate. Education in India cannot liberate us. It has just made us literate to earn money, but hasn’t given us the spine to ask critical questions about our traditions, values, customs, beliefs, rituals, socialisation process, prejudice, biases, stereotypes and our mindsets.
The article was originally published here.