Netflix did a sleek job of highlighting South- Asian faces on the main stream featured web series, Mindy Kaling’s Never Have I Ever, and went ahead, breaking the typical stereotypes about brown populace with our Indian-American teen girl Devi and her regular teenage drama.
Devi Vishwakumar, a 15 year-old kid from Sherman Oaks Valley, starts with praying to her Hindu idols, with a geometry book kept for blessing and wishing for things which might seem useless to others but ranks top in her priority list. For instance, a hot and famous boyfriend, lesser body hair and invitation to rave parties and goes on to complain about her freshman year, when she went through ordeals, death of her father and her temporary leg paralysis.
She crushes on the school’s famous Paxton, a swim team captain and dreams of having physical relationship with him, thus becoming obsessed with him. On the other hand, her PTSD makes thing worse, leading her to ruining her relation with her best friends Fabiola and Eleanor, and with her family.
Why is the show different?
The show answered back to various prejudices with sarcasms and humour, but also feeding to it in many ways. Nalini, Devi’s mother, was expected to mourn for her husband’s death by being at home, but she accepted the reality and moved on, carrying her job and going out for refreshments. On the other hand, Kamala, Devi’s cousin, traveled across the globe to pursue her PhD at Caltech, such as Indian thing to do.
Other than the representation of Asian people, Never Have I Ever also thrown the spotlight on people with Down Syndrome, through the role of Rebecca, adopted sister of Paxton, and Paxton, in return, being a protective brother and standing up to those who bully her.
Jewish kid Ben Gross taught us that money doesn’t always create a spoilt child. The son of a famous entertainment attorney in Los Angeles, took refuge to a nerdy life, trying to distract from his loneliness and made us realise that no pocket money can replace the parental love a child craves for.
What made the fans smile is that the show does not promote raging and unlike other high school drama, Sherman Oaks High School is a safe place for the students and everyone minds their own business. Also, our favourite history teacher Mr.Shapiro doubles the fun with his newly learnt teen slangs and trying hard to make the lessons student friendly and funny. Can we have a Mr.Shapiro at every high school? Thank you.
How can we forget our therapist Dr.Ryan and her transparent and frank therapy sessions, being honest with things and giving the right solutions to our problems.
All in all, Never Have I Ever is a go-to series for all the brown people out there and a “brought a smile” series for everyone. The show is frontlined by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Devi, Poorna Jagannathan as Nalini, Richa Moorjani as Kamala, Jaren Lewison as Ben, Lee Rodriguez as Fabiola, Ramona Young as Eleanor, Darren Barnet as Paxton, Nicey Nash as Dr.Ryan, Lily D.Moore as Rebecca and many more.