Having lived among just white kids, like Devi, being brown to me was always unpalatable. Yet, I find myself with compassion towards this show because by causing traction as a Netflix-wide brown teen drama, I finally feel like our conversations on representation are being pushed forward. And even more so, there are inherent inadequacies coming from the show’s surface-level cultural associations, Mindy’s uneasy humour and sour, misinformed stereotypes about Indian people. That being said, there are too little opportunities inserted between Devi’s love life, the focus of the show, to talk in detail about the problems with growing up believing that Western life is the single emancipatory power.
“Brown was feeling embarrassed of my parents, a life of no dating and more than anything, a blistering uneasiness of sticking out like a sore thumb” For example, when Devi is at the Ganesh Puja celebration and meets Harish, a brown friend who quickly questions her insecurities with being Indian, it made me think – would I have been more confident if I had been questioned like that growing up?
And as a genesis of the sort, it has shaken the landscape of the portrayal of adolescence for brown people, especially when historically it was either absent or problematic.ĭevi’s character is an important personification of the struggles with living seemingly “ordinary” lives as brown girls and the difficulty of claiming our identities which comes out of it. I always saw whiteness as the norm of how I should exist, disregarding my reality – the life towards Ivy league education, our “strict” mothers and our gleaming cultural traditions.
But the show also tackles our perceived “differences” as children of Desi immigrants growing up in the West. With a mixture of fantasising, ruined friendships and distressing family situations – it was nice to finally see brown people as everyday humans, rather than one-dimensional caricatures on my screen. It has wonderful depth in its a display of brown teen normality. Mindy Kaling’s show is important to me for many reasons. So, when I binged Never Have I Ever it immediately validated some of my actions and I thought, where was this when I was growing up? Yet despite my obsessions with popularity, Harry Styles-looking white boys and Gossip Girl (the Riverdale of my time), as a brown girl it always felt as if I’d hopped into Rory Gilmore’s skin, but it didn’t quite fit. In fact, at times I’d even pretend my life was out of a teen drama. What’s your favorite type of day? (weather, temp, etc.Seeham Rahman: Finally I get to see my teens on screenīy 15, my experience growing up was incredibly similar to Never Have I Ever’s lead character, Devi Vishwakumar.What website or app doesn’t exist, but you really wish it did?.What is the most amazing fact you know?.What takes a lot of time but is totally worth it?.
What are some of your favorite games to play?.What was the funniest thing you’ve seen recently online?.If you could start a charity, what would it be for?.What food do you love that a lot of people might find a little odd?.What has taken you the longest to get good or decent at?.What incredibly common thing have you never done?.What’s the best thing you’ve got going on in your life at the moment?.Have a look through and choose the icebreaker questions that you think will work best for the person or people you are talking to.Ĭlick here for this page en español. Here is our list of icebreaker questions that are perfect for getting a conversation going.