The template was set last season when wedding planners Tara Khanna (Sobhita Dhulipala) and Karan Mehra (Arjun Mathur) hit a different trouble spot with every marriage they handled. Each episode had a newbride and groom with the planners conjuring a memorably different experience for each couple. There was variety in their problems and a mix of varied visual flavours in the marriages.
Running alongside were Tara’s rough marital moments with husband Adil (Jim Sarbh), climaxing with the entry of his girlfriend Faiza Naqvi (Kalki Koechlin). Karan had his own battles as a homosexual who had outed himself. And a big attempt at normalising gay sexuality was made with visuals of physical homosexual intimacy between Karan and a couple of partners.
Does the second season have anything new to say?
Created and directed by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, who also co-write with Alankrita Shrivastava, the template stays and there’s more of the same but the franchise also takes its determined effort at diversity a notch higher.Real life transgender Dr Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, born Angad before undergoing Gender Confirmation Surgery in 2020, is brought in to play Manav-turned-Meher, the production head of ‘Made In Heaven’, the wedding planners. With Meher around, a hitherto-infrequently-attempted track at a transgender’s traumas to fit in, gets its fair share of attention.
It’s rare but not unheard of as even commercial filmmakers have taken a tender look at transgenders in the past. The best example being Vijay Sethupathi in the much-applauded and much-awarded Tamil film Super Deluxe (2019) where the transgender is a part of many other stories. It is on Netflix, if anybody’s interested.
Zoya and Reema continue with tackling societal problems. The smorgasbord serves the white skin obsession of Indians, a groom eyeing the wealth of his bride while his mother and her father are secretly and madly in love, an actress getting married despite physical abuse, a high profile filmland wedding where no real love exists but makes a picture-perfect wedding for fans, a Dalit-upper caste relationship and an older woman-younger guy love marriage.
The quest to showcase different kinds of wedding celebrations makes brief stops at south Indian rituals and a Buddhist wedding.
A look at children’s issues and letting a young adult pursue his dreams are also woven in. So is divorce where Tara comes off as a gold digger.
Above all is abuse, all kinds of abuse. A transgender, a gay designer, a bride, a much-married woman, heterosexuals, homosexuals… everybody gets abused.
In case you haven’t got the message that’s conveyed each time, a VO sums up the thought of each one-hour-long episode. One asks, ‘Why do women believe that their love will change a man?’ Maybe the next time around, Zoya and Reema will ask a question about men who also sometimes get trapped or fooled. Because the makers tend to look at most issues strictly through a woman’s lens. You don’t really see a bride being the conniving one. She is the victim, in almost all episodes and sub-plots. Maybe a balance could be attempted the next time around.
And a next season is on the cards as there’s so much left tantalisingly unclear.
Jauhari (Vijay Raaz) who came in as 10% partner, introduces wife Bulbul (Mona Singh) to the company. Bulbul, the acerbic auditor who gradually shows a sensitive side and soon joins the gang. There will be more of the Jauharis.
Of the Khannas too as a new sister has arrived on the scene and Adil’s mom Bindu (Natasha Rastogi) is hurt enough to want to hit back at Tara. Also, why did Tara do what she did?
Jazz (Shivani Raghuvanshi) and Kabir (Shashank Arora) have to resolve their differences.
One has to give it to the team for casting perfectly and getting just the right performance from every name in the acting department. There’s variety in the room as the performers range from Mrunal Thakur, Neelam Kothare and Sarah Jane Dias to Pulkit Samrat and Anurag Kashyap too. Though I was a little disappointed that Ishwak Singh, cast as Raghav, is like a stepney in Tara’s life, summoned when lonely, dismissed when preoccupied.
But that’s life.
Rating: 3/5
Watch Made In Heaven Trailer:
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