Old Wine, New Bottle? Mindy Kaling's Show ¡®Never Have I Ever¡¯ Is Dramatic AF With A Desi Tadka!
Most of us have hit rock-bottom, courtesy lockdown/social-distancing/quarantine heck even China! We have been home-bound for almost two months now and the near future is not looking so bright either.?
With so much gloom in the air, even web-series and movies don¡¯t hold our attention anymore. If you are one of those who play anything in the background just to scroll through social media feeds on your phone, then rest assured that you are experiencing withdrawal symptoms.?
Amid all this, in my bored state of mind, body and soul, I happened to catch the newly released show on Netflix called Never Have I Ever and to my utter shock, I got hooked from the get-go. So much so that I completed the entire season in 5 hours straight!
SPOILER ALERT: In case, you are one of those who incessantly cry foul when it comes to spoilers, then it¡¯s time to retract from here. I¡¯d suggest you watch the show and then come back for all the juicy details and discussions.
Riverdale, Elite and Sex Education - coming-of-age dramas are plenty, but Never Have I Ever is different from the rest because it¡¯s not COMPLICATED
Unlike other shows of this genre, Never Have I Ever will win you over with its simplicity. The pilot of the show begins with protagonist Devi Vishwakumar praying to her Hindu gods for three things:
1. ¡°I¡¯d like to be invited to a party with alcohol and hard drugs. I don¡¯t wanna do them but i¡¯d like to have the opportunity to say - No cocaine for me, i¡¯m good thanks¡±
2. "I¡¯d love for my arm hair to thin out. I know it¡¯s an Indian thing but the my forearms look like the floor of a barber shop."
3. "Lastly and most importantly, I need a boyfriend. Not a nerd but someone from the sports team. He can be dumb, i don¡¯t care."?
I won¡¯t deny the biasedness here, but it¡¯s refreshing to see an Indian-origin girl playing the lead in a western set-up. For starters, it makes the teen drama more relatable. Riverdale, Sex Education and other shows weren¡¯t bad but they never clicked with most of the Indian kids because our problems were almost like a world apart from the teenagers in the West. Devi¡¯s struggles hit home. Her desperation to be one of the crowd reminded me of my own teenage years when i used to try too hard to blend in.?
Fun Trivia: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan bagged the role in Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher¡¯s brain-child after she beat over 15,000 South-Asian teen actresses in an open-call audition in LA. Since then, she and Kaling have become so close that she considers the latter her mentor and refers to her as her ¡°fairy godmother¡± on social media.
The buildup is concise yet formidable - A draconian tragedy, severed mother-daughter relationship, boy troubles and existential crisis, Never Have I Ever has it all!
Devi is short-tempered, hysterical and an out-and-out American trapped in an Indian family. She loses it when things don¡¯t go according to plan, has a troubled relationship with her mother and is obsessed with losing her V-card. She is also jealous of her overachieving Indian cousin who is ¡®perfect¡¯ in every sense of the word.?
Before you start assuming she maybe has insecurities, Devi believes that ¡°she is a glamorous woman who deserves to have a sexy life¡±. Disregarding her Tamilian descent, she is pretty sure that she¡¯ll grow up to be ¡°an atheist who eats cheeseburgers everyday with her white boyfriend¡±.?
It won¡¯t be wrong to say that Mindy Kaling has made the series out of her personal experiences in the West where she has often gone on record to say that the portrayal of South Asians on American TV is highly cliched. Devi and her family are constantly trying to balance between their native and acquired culture. Whether to take the Indian or the American approach in each and every situation.?
In fact, the show even deals with the arranged marriage concept with a lot of elan.
Not just Devi, even the other characters have a lot of depth. Especially her control-freak mother Nalini, who barely wastes time to reprimand her daughter and appreciate her niece, in a single breath!
Devi who is called an 'unfuckable nerd' at school dreams of getting into Princeton university. Nalini, is the recently-widowed mother of Devi who is trying to cope with the sudden death of her husband and at the same time parenting Devi and her cousin Kamala.?
She is a dermatologist who is sailing on two boats simultaneously- an orthodox indian culture preacher and a liberal westerner. She unabashedly discriminates between her own daughter and her niece. While her ambitious daughter never seems to impress her, she dotes on her niece even when she commits 'cardinal sins'.?
She is super-strict and hard on her daughter but when it comes to her niece, she is often seen being lenient and considerate. Full marks to Poorna Jaganathan of Delhi Belly?and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani fame for pulling off this role so convincingly that you cannot decide whether to love her or hate her.
The way Mindy Kaling has tried to keep the show diverse in every sense of the word, is definitely applause-worthy
Kaling definitely tried to make a strong point with this show and I'm sure it has been received loud and clear by the audiences. Devi¡¯s BFFs Eleanor and Fabiola both belong to different ethnicities. While the former is Asian-American, the latter is biracial. In fact, the guy that Devi crushes on Paxton, is of Japanese descent. Obviously, the show has maintained a balance and has Americans as well. Throughout the season, Devi and her friends are shown battling some typical stereotypes and cliches.
Never Have I Ever touches a lot of soft spots including mental health, loneliness and homophobia among other things but in a classy and tasteful manner
Devi deals with suppressed grief after her father¡¯s untimely and shocking death. She has difficulty finding an outlet to come to terms with reality. From hallucinations to blackouts, the poor 15-year-old goes through a lot. So much so, that she loses the function of her legs for a brief period of time. All this while, she is also trying to undo her nerd and clown image by trying to bag the coolest dude of the block and getting him to sleep with her.?
Parallely, her friends have issues of their own. Eleanor is trying to follow in the footsteps of her actress mother, she is often looked down upon for her flamboyance and loud personality. She gets the biggest shock when she finds out that her mother had been faking her success and is a waitress instead. Being let down by your idol is one thing but being blatantly lied to can be a huge setback for some.?
Fabiola, on the other hand, is struggling to come out of the closet and is confused about her sexual orientation. She lambasts a girl, who she has been making goo-goo eyes at, for asking her out on a date!?
Devi¡¯s nemesis Ben has it all! A hot girlfriend, top position in the class and rich parents. You would think that he is living his best life. We are taken in for a surprise when the story unfolds and shows him dealing with loneliness. His parents ditch him on his 16th birthday! Cleary, money can't really buy happiness.
The makers have been successful at showcasing all this in a simplistic yet a hard-hitting manner. Everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, the climax of the first season will bring even a cold-hearted person to tears!?
