Made in Heaven Season 2: Vijay Raaz’s Jauhari is the undercover feminist icon we need

(Also Read: Trinetra Haldar interview on extending her trans experience to Meher in Made in Heaven 2)

First impressions

That scene isn’t exactly our introduction of Jauhari as we see him across the season as the moneylender whom Karan owes a hefty amount. He’s chasing and even threatening Karan to return his money. But it’s the first time we see Jauhari for who he is, and what he’s perceived to be.

The scene is crafted in a way that we see him through Adil’s elite eyes. From how Adil stares at Jauhari when the latter introduces himself the old school way through a business card, to the flashes of disgust on Adil’s face when Jauhari clears his throat audibly while scanning the accounts, every action and reaction make for great insights into the psyche of the beholder.

The audience tends to share their perspective of Jauhari with Adil, till he decides to give it back. When asked to stay mum because wedding planning isn’t his expertise, Jauhari schools Adil in return, asking him to look after the dwindling shares of his other company, in which his wife is a stakeholder.

The most key insight, however, comes when Karan asks Jauhari if he’d like to have something to drink. Jauhari responds, “Chai… green.” The way Vijay Raaz speaks this line encapsulates the constitution of his character. Jauhari is firmly rooted, but unexpectedly modern. He’s visibly desi, but inherently progressive. He drinks green tea, but insists on calling it chai, the green one.

Feminist in closet

Writers Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti and Alanrkita Shrivastava take this dichotomy of Jauhari and our prejudiced perspective of him to a whole new level in Made in Heaven Season 2.

Of course, the show kicks off with Jauhari gaining majority control in the wedding planning company, after Adil walks out. He’s seen tightening his grip on the proceedings in the meetings, and Tara and Karan even crack a joke on how their new office in Juhari’s old haveli in Purani Dilli is out of rich clients’ reach.

Jauhari takes all the criticisms head on without interfering much, except for appointing an auditor to keep expenses in check. Enter: Bulbul Juhari (Mona Singh), his wife. Like Jauhari, Bulbul starts off as a typical character, maintaining an iron grip on the accounts, from allowing an emotional colleague to take only one tissue from the box to exchanging the pink champagne with a less expensive one and exchanging natural flowers with plastic substitutes.

But gradually, her life back home allows her past to unravel. We soon learn she’s a domestic abuse survivor, and our first suspect is, naturally, her much older husband, Jauhari. Even though Jauhari showers her with compliments, Bulbul takes them with a faint smile and her eyes down. Her elder son Dhruv, who disobeys her quite openly, can’t help but follow Jauhari’s orders. Is that because he’s scared of the abusive man Jauhari is? Is Jauhari overcompensating his past behaviour of abuse by constantly praising his wife?

The viewers wrestle with these assumptions as the plot progresses. When Bulbul says, on a couple of occasions, that Dhruv has taken to his father, Jauhari looks at him with a solemn expression, which can be interpreted as intimidating. We half expect him to blow his lid and break into an abusive fit anytime.

But that never happens. In fact, there’s an underlying sincerity in Bulbul and Jauhari’s romance. Him defending her in public in front of their colleagues or Dhruv’s friends may amount to putting up the facade of a supportive husband, but him calling her ‘sundar’ on a video call and saying ‘bye’ like a highschool sweetheart in love tells a very different story.

The final reveal

When the curtains on Jauhari and Bulbul’s past lifts, he’s not even in that scene. When Bulbul explains to Dhruv that her scars are actually her ex husband and his dead father’s, the puzzle starts to piece itself together. She reveals Jauhari was her neighbour who helped her with hospital visits and even covered for her in the police case of her husband’s death out of self-defense.

In their next scene together, when we see Jauhari firmly hold Bulbul’s hand in a tense moment, we realise that it’s out of comforting her, and not out of asserting himself, what we assumed it to be in a previous instance. We also see how he has restraint while dealing with Dhruv, probably because he’s not his son. He asserts his authority to the boy only when he misbehaves with Bulbul.

By the end of Season 2, Jauhari emerges as that wild-card feminist who was present through the show, but we didn’t think even worthy of considering. He was, in fact, just being himself throughout. Instead of posturing as one, he just was a feminist and a secure one at that. Feminism came to him as organically as his desi-ness. He doesn’t even come of age as a feminist; his arc is quite stable. Vijay Raaz, along with the writers, mould Jauhari in a way that it makes us the viewers come of age instead, in our assessment of how a feminist is supposed to look, speak and behave.