Neeraj Ghaywan: Pallavi Menke is me!

A still from the film

"Pallavi Menke is me," filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan confesses, before apologising for emotionally choking up, during a video call with mid-day, along with Alankrita Shrivastav, Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, writer-directors of the second season of the Emmy-nominated series, Made in Heaven (MIH), on Amazon Prime Video.

Ghaywan is referring to Radhika Apte's Ambedkarite Dalit, upper-class, lead-character, in the fifth episode of MIH, titled The Heart Skipped A Beat, directed by him. That's singularly turned into a conversation-starter online.

The episode - focusing on publicly reclaiming/owning one's Dalit identity - climaxes with the protagonist putting her foot down to host an additional Buddhist wedding, while getting married into an upper-caste family.

Ghaywan - who Akhtar describes as "wild card entry" into the MIH franchise, and has been credited for "additional story" for the said episode - says, "The writers, Alankrita, Reema and Zoya had an idea about where they wished to go [with the episode] - about an accomplished person, from the marginalised, Dalit community, who's received love, adulation, internationally. But is still not off the clutches of caste."

Neeraj Ghaywan

"Which hearkens back to BR Ambedkar. This man was the most well-read in our country. And when he was coming back to India, after his education abroad [reading law at Columbia University], he expected garlands to welcome him. But he was thrown out of the lodge he was staying. That's when it hit him that no matter what you do, the inter-generational trauma is not going to escape you!"

When Ghaywan entered the writers' room, he recalls, "I somehow ended up speaking about my entire life. I haven't even spoken as much to my therapist! And I poured a lot of myself [into the writing later]. It is scary to put out something you've spent all your years, growing up, hiding away from the world."

For instance, Ghaywan points out, "When she [Pallavi Menke] talks about using a [caste-neutral] last name, Kumar - that's me. Soon as you tell someone your full name, there is endemic scrutiny in our country. People want to know where you are from, location, gotra, caste… It's genuinely scarring. In my passport, my last name is still Kumar. But I've reclaimed Ghaywan. It's been five years."

In 2018, Ghaywan had publicly owned his Dalit identity over a post on X (formerly known as Twitter). He says, "A lot of the press picked that up. My extended family were still masking [their Dalit identity].

"They felt miffed, that it's public now, and everybody knows they're related to me. Which is what we used for Pallavi's brother's track [in the MIH episode]. And that boy's character is also right about having to live with India's reality."

Ghaywan adds, "The other thing that weighs me down is being the only acknowledged artiste in the whole of the film industry, while 25 per cent of the country belongs to the [Dalit] community. That weight is too much to carry. I have doubts about myself. That reflects in Pallavi's life too.

"Also, as an artiste, who wants to tell different kinds of stories, I'm always pulled into every panel discussion to talk about caste. Even on MIH, they want to talk to me about episode five. Which was my way of exorcising demons; a catharsis. I was scared about how the parents would react. Will my niece unfollow me on Instagram?

"But there's been so much love. I didn't expect people crying to me to say it's the first time in centuries, they've felt seen, heard - that we exist with our beauty, that is ours. [Dalit issues] have always been seen in an atrocity-porn sort of way - through a privileged caste, ‘white-male saviour' complex."

The character Pallavi on MIH is a Columbia-alum, who ‘comes out' a Dalit, through her book. Which, on the face of it, relates to author Yashica Dutt who, in turn, has complained on social media, about feeling slighted, erased for not being credited for the inspiration.

"Whatever we had to say [on the issue], we already have," says MIH co-creator Kagti, referring to a statement issued by the show's directors, citing all other inspirations for the episode, to "deny any claim that Ms Dutt's life or work was appropriated."

Ghaywan adds, "Art reflects reality. And if it doesn't, then it'll become hollow. [What] if you tell Truffaut, look at all the post-modern kitsch that you've shown - why have you not attributed? You have to see things through the lens of art."

Speaking of which, Akhtar, in another context, points out instances in MIH that are based on real life, "The in-laws [Neelam, Samir Soni], in love, running away from a wedding [in episode three] was taken from a news report. So was the girl marrying herself [in the finale episode]. Stories are rooted in truth - your personal lives, families', literature, news, political zeitgeist - that's how you make fiction."

Apart from caste, MIH touches on multiple issues, from ‘colourism' to domestic abuse, over a seven-part, second season. Was that a conscious call? Kagti rebuts, "That's a reductive way of looking at it. Women's empowerment is at the base of the show, [and the irony] of two people [Sobhita Dhulipala, Arjun Mathur] organising weddings - one of whom is divorced; the other can't ever get married!"

According to Akhtar, "[MIH] is the love story of Tara and Karan [the said central protagonists] - that your soulmate can be somebody you're not married to, or in [physically] intimate man-woman relationship with."

As for Shrivastav, "The show is about insiders and outsiders, and what it takes to feel like you ‘belong' - whether socially, geographically, financially. It's reflective of the city of Delhi."