Made in heaven: A breath of fresh air.

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]The big fat Indian weddings. I’m sure there would have have been a series of snaps in your head while reading this phrase. The wedding is a huge affair with so many people and so many tantrums involved.

Made in heaven (2019) talks about all “behind the scenes” that happen in Indian weddings. The scandals, emotions, struggles and huge bags of cash involved for that one day. The TV series has been created by Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar. The show was written by Kagti, Akhtar along with Alankrita Srivastava and Nitya Mehra, the super women squad!

The show has been produced by Excel entertainment and Tiger baby and stars Arjun Mathur, Sobhita Dhulipala, Kalki Koechlin, Jim Sarbh, Shashank Arora, Shivani Raghuvanshi in lead roles and many other talented actors in supporting roles.

The character guide

I enlist here all the major characters along with the actors who have played the roles:

Karan Mehra, the partner in Made in heaven (wedding planning company) : Arjun Mathur

Tara Khana, the other partner in Made in heaven: Sobhita Dhulipala

Adil Khana, successful entrepreneur and husband of Tara: Jim Sarbh

Faiza Naqvi, best friend of Tara: Kalki Koechlin

Kabir, official photographer of Made in heaven: Shashank Arora

Jaspreet, production assistant in Made in heaven: Shivani Raghuvanshi

The plot

The series mainly revolves around the lead characters, Tara and Karan Mehra and their company, Made in heaven which is stuck in some dilemma or trouble in every wedding.

Every episode contains a new wedding and further updates from the lives of our central characters. The professional and personal lives of both these characters are somewhat intertwined and form a synergy. The various episodes along with the personal lives of central characters have addressed issues which the bollywood hasn’t addressed even in a decade.

Tara is struggling with her marriage where she finds out that her husband,Adil is cheating with her best friend, Faiza.

Tara wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She comes from a humble background and had resorted to some unethical means to earn this fortune. The past keeps haunting her as she struggles to make peace with hee present.

Karan is a homosexual, who copes up with his stress and loneliness with one night stands.

In each episode, you can easily notice his reluctance towards his one night stand partners after the night passes. It shows his lack of commitment and indulgence. He is debt ridden and does not share a cordial relation with his family.

Jaspreet, Jazz has a drug addict brother and her family is in tatters. After she starts working in Made in heaven, her condition improves but her brother is still her concern.

Kabir is a very thoughtful character in the movie who has poetic lines for every episode. He gets infatuated to Jazz but he has a live-in partner as well. He shoots videos for the couples to be married which shows a lot of contradictions and scandals involved in Indian marriages.

You would have noticed Zoya’s obsession with poetry in Zindagi na milegi Dobara or Gully boy and she follows the same trend with some lines in English this time. Her loge for poetry can be well credited to her father, Zaved Akhtar.

Faiza is a character that will seem uncanny at times but you can easily notice that she is not good at handling relationships. That stems from her distant relationship with her father and her abusive marriage with Bilal.

She indulges into an extra marital affair with Adil fully realising that he is the husband of her best friend but she receives love, care and a sense of security from her relationship with Adil which stops her from realising her moral duty. This is the first time that she is being treated with so much love and care.

Adil is a professional guy who handles things with utmost care and patience. He doesn’t shout even when angry and doesn’t let go of his nerve in difficult situations. He is a liar and habitual cheater which you can notice from he fact that he cheated on his fiance with Tara and then cheated on Tara with Faiza.

His character is dark, cryptic and though he ia loving person, he has loyalty issues.

One very peculiar aspect of this series is the friendship between Kafan and Tara. There were times when they were completing each other and being the emotional support when the other person needs. The scene where Karan comes to wish Tara her birthday in the night and the happiness that he brings to Tara is priceless. We all need that friend!

The stories

Every episode talks of a new wedding which comes with a set of challenges. The Karan Tara duo try to tackle the issues at their level best as they both have to make their wedding business a success. Tara has financial inputs from Adil while Karan has taken a loan to start the firm. They both need profit. Even though they have contraints, they try to go out of their reach to stop the injustices being done. As the story progresses, you can easily see how they handle situations in a more responsible manner.

In the first story where Tara enjoys her financial fortunes, she makes the bride understand to make peace with her in- laws as it is a question of 5,000 crores. But as Tara matures and the glitter of money goes away, she handles the wedding more responsibly as seen in the episode where the dowry is asked from parents of girl.

She chooses to inform the girl in the middle of the wedding and the girl steps out of marriage.

The first story is about invasion of privacy of the bride by her in-laws which is assisted by Tara and Karan (this is the immature part of them). Money is the element which settles the disagreement. The second story is about a girl who sleeps with a celebrity and later realises her mistake.

The third story is my favorite one where Gayatri (Deepti Naval) chooses to remarry after 3 decades of loneliness but the decision is not supported by her children.

But Karan succeeds in convincing her children to attend the marriage. This is actually a very subtle match where two individuals tie knot out of pure love and devotion towards each other.

The fourth story is when groom and his parents ask for dowry when the baarat is at the doors of bride is really intriguing. This shows the true story of north India, mainly UP, Bihar where dowry demands are particularly very high. The bride’s parents agree to pay the dowry so that marrige is concluded but the girl is informed by Tara in the middle of marriage and she breaks the alliance saying “I don’t want to pay someone to marry me”.

I loved Shweta Tripathi’s acting in this episode particularly. The storyline is new and the freedom with which Shweta chooses to walk away is something new and refreshing to watch.

Parallel to the stories, Tara and Karan’s life are taking strange turns. Tara finds out about Adil’s cheating and is enraged but she keeps her calm. She maintains distance with Adil but there are powerful flashbacks from her life where she was the one who helped Adil cheat on Adil’s ex-fiance. Now it’s her. She is being cheated. KARMA?

Karan is trying to tolerate his rathee mundane life and keeps reminiscing about a childhood friend and partner, Nawab (Vikrant Massey) and his inability to come to terms with his memories. He is being watched by his landlord, Mr. Gupta (Vinay Pathak) who also happens to be a gay. He is not courageous enough to come out and carries his affairs rather secretly.

The fifth story is about a beauty pageant which is held to choose a wife for an NRI.

This often happens in Punjab and areas adjoining owing to their craziness for America and Canada. There have been multiple cases of fraud in such marriages. The story also tells tale of one, the groom is impotent! The future of bride is bleak but she has no other option so she decides to stay with her husband.

The sixth story is a rather mundane one and this episode is more utilised to enhance the lives of central characters. Adil meets Faiza to say a goodbye and Faiza talks her therapist to recover from the situation. The story is that of a highly educated girl who chooses to marry a tree to erase her manglik dosh which is not affirmed by her fiance but is considered desirable by her parents and in laws.

The seventh story was a thrilling one. The story is shot in Rajasthan in a beautiful palace.

The father of groom molests a girl who is working in the wedding. The bride gives a shocking response to this and tries to bury the matter by offering money to the girl. The reputation is later spoiled by Karan with the help of his journalist friend.

The story tells what women empowerment really means. It’s not only about working outside and wearing modern clothes, it’s also about standing up against injustices done to women. On a parallel front, Karan has been arrested on a complaint by his landlord on the charges of section 377 (which has now been repealed but the biases still exist). He is sexually and mentally torchered in prison. Somehow he is released but the scars are deep. He is questioned by the media in rather undignified manner.

But this gives an opportunity to him to talk about the cause of homosexuality and generate awareness.

The last two episodes cover the story of a political family who are forcefully marrying her daughter against her will. This matter is resolved by Made in heaven team by reconciling the bride with her lover. With this, the marriage of Tara and Adil has hit the rock bottom and it breaks off in the anniversary celebration of their marriage.

Tara believes the marriage is over. They both have cheated each other. Adil cheated on Tara with an affair while Tara cheated on Adil by using unethical means to lure him.

This is the storyline and plot of the series, I will talk more in the next post.

Have a great day![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-left”][/vc_column][/vc_row]