'Never Have I Ever' looks beyond Hindi

Rating: 3/5

Cast: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Poorna Jagannathan, Richa Moorjani

Creators: Mindy Kaling, Lang Fisher

While ‘Never Have I Ever’ has the trademark of writer-actor Mindy Kaling all over it, it is a deviation from what we generally know her for.

Her best-known credit is for the American sitcom ‘The Office’, for which she served as both as writer and actor.

Indian-ness has been crucial to Mindy’s work, which she has indulged in, and even good-naturedly made fun of, through her career.

But with ‘Never Have I Ever’, she takes her identity to its greyer and more emotional aspects.

Tapping into Mindy’s own Tamil identity, ‘Never Have I Ever’ tells the story of a young American-Tamil girl called Devi, whose family does not shy away from obscure non-Hindi words (for an American audience) like “kanna”.

But one of the good things about the show is that it doesn’t fall into the cliché of an umbrella Indian identity, where different aspects from different Indian cultures are chosen, with a splash of Bollywood music, to make it more recognisably Indian to America.

Hollywood has not looked beyond Hindi when using Indian characters, expect perhaps for Tamil songs in the series ‘Master of None’ and the orgy scene in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’.

Devi is played by the debutante Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, who is convincing as a teenager that wants to look away from the memories of her father’s death by any means possible.

But for all the points that Mindy deserves for representation, the show does not reach beyond a story arc that we are already familiar with through with many shows. High school dramas are among the most plundered genres in the West, making originality considerably tough, but shows like ‘Sex Education’ have proved that it is not impossible.

However, one breath of fresh air was when Devi -- unlike every high school drama where the wait to tell your crush about your feelings is what supposedly glues the audience to their seats -- walks straight up to the guy in the pilot episode and tells him that she wants to have sex with him. Kudos.

The stroke of genius in the show is that Mindy got tennis legend John McEnroe to narrate the story in voice-over.

‘Never Have I Ever’ is a very likeable show, which can be funny at times, and remains consistently light-weight, making it very addictive. You will not regret watching it.