For a show that is named Made In Heaven, it is interesting that the characters it gives are flawed, full of contradictions but still beautiful in their own ways.
One of them being, Jaspreet Kaur AKA Jazz.
Shivani Raghuvanshi, who we had earlier seen in Titli as wife of a car thief is a breath of fresh air. In Made In Heaven, her portrayal of Jazz is relatable for every woman who is trying to make it big in the world that can sometimes be really cruel.
The first time we meet her, she has come to join the wedding planning company ‘Made In Heaven’ as a production assistant.
Jaspreet looks out of place. From her clothes to her accent, nothing seems to belong in the flashy office where she is going to work.
Looking at her attire, her boss sarcastically tells her, “Oh, you are all dressed up”, but she doesn’t get it. She accepts the compliment and nods politely.
That’s Jazz for you. Within 10 minutes of her introduction, you know she is going to stay. Because of innocent oblivion, if nothing else.
Jaspreet is desperate for acceptance and it becomes evident every time she tells someone “call me Jazz” because she hopes it will make her cool.
Running from one end to other with her walkie talkie, she diligently follows instructions and offers limited resources she has access to.
This can be a DJ from West Delhi or giving suggestions only she could think of. She is supporting her family financially as her sibling steals jewellery from his mother to buy drugs. This makes Jazz helpless. She is earning but she doesn’t have the luxury to spend the money on herself.
Overcome by her desire to fit in, she even buys clothes from the company’s card. Dressed in clothes she could never afford, she finally feels ‘worthy’.
She gets caught, though, and is fired immediately. Dejected, she goes to her love interest and gets intimate with him. You know she doesn’t meet him often and is doing that to distract herself from the sadness that is weighing her down.
Jazz is not perfect but she is real; and in many ways, her character is a commentary on lives of many ‘millennials’ who’d go a long way to fit in their environment, even if they can’t afford to do it
She is every girl who leaves home to find a better future for herself. Not just in terms of professional success but also quality of life.
She wants to ‘live in the moment’, drink, party and have a good time with people, just like every young girl. But she finds herself ‘different’ from every one who seems ‘comfortable’ in this lifestyle.
Jazz lacks that ‘comfort’ and tries to compensate for it, risking things just to belong.
For instance, she has a great time in one of the wedding parties and the first thing she does is upload pictures on Facebook. This gets her into a lot of trouble, eventually, and when she is deleting the album you can see the pain in her eyes.
She wants to be seen, which is a very fair emotion when your life changes the way hers does.
If we were in the same universe, I’d tell her that she doesn’t need to ‘fit in’; but then I think that’s what makes her raw and relatable. In the end, that’s all of us.
It is praiseworthy how Shivani picked up the nuances of these characters, belonging either to small towns or small colonies in big cities.
