Made in Heaven... to live in hell... what an irony?

Made in Heaven... to live in hell... what an irony? 

Made in Heaven, the web series in Amazon prime video could really reflect the hypocrisy of Indian society there on your face directly.  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. Indian society is very harsh to the marginalised section of our society always and the series could rightly show it there on the face for us to reflect and understand the need to change. 

The protagonists in the series rightly showed the struggle for acceptance and belonging that each one of us has while traversing the path of personal and professional life. The struggle of certain marginalised people in an urban setting in a globalised world is constantly increasing in the line of gender, class and sexual orientation. These struggles will definitely shape the social, economic and political narrative of new India in the near future. The series very beautifully showcase the gender wars, class wars, and wars fought to legitimise sexual identity. The idea of using an Indian wedding (elite wedding), which is one of the important parts of Indian life, is used as the medium to narrate these struggles is really unique. If you need to see the hypocritical as well as a genuine part of the Indian family, then I think an Indian wedding is a right platform to observe and reflect. The series with its 9 episodes showed 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 showed the growing inequality in wealth among Indian society and the impact on the life of each one of us. The series also touched 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 tackles very well the important aspect of our struggle "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 through out. 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 get married. Rest all 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 caused to our Indian society (and the world at large) due to strong patriarchal sentiments that govern our socialisation process. The series interestingly portray men as both, perpetrators as well as victims of patriarchy, especially Vinay Pathak’s Gupta ji, who has one of the show’s most understated yet powerful track. Besides this, the series also reveals the age-old plot of how sexually impotency of men ends up directing their rage towards the women. The series blatantly points out the horrific ways in which women are conditioned to appease to male entitlement and the cost of rebellion if any. While watching those episodes I always had that frustrating moment when I hopelessly feel that will the world change or will the manifestation of patriarchy change with time. The voice over of Shashank Arora at end of every episode was chilling as it could summarise the moral of each episode. They were really reflective and the literal summary of every episode. 

Tanul Thakur, in his article at The Wire, rightly says that it "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 the Indians need to be educated not just literate. Education in India could not liberate us. It just made us literate to earn money and not a spine to ask a critical question to our traditions, values, customs, beliefs, rituals, socialisation process, prejudice, biasedness, stereotypes and our mindsets. 

Reference: 

 1. https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/made-in-heaven-review-zoya-akhtars-show-exposes-our-vulgar-obsession-with-social-perceptions_in_5c81327ae4b06ff26ba665a7