When one’s foot isn’t tapping and shoulders are not rhythmically swaying to the instantly ear-catching, decidedly ’80s soundtrack in Never Have I Ever (streaming on Netflix), one would most probably be busy frowning over Devi’s decision-making skills.

Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) is a 15-year-old attending a local school in Sherman Oaks, California. Although a US-born Indian, Devi really wants to be who everyone in her school already is: an All-American girl, as carefree as her seemingly-mangy hairstyle or her seemingly-hastily put-on attire makes her seem. In actuality, the hair and the clothes are deliberate choices for Devi and aren’t as carefree or off-the-cuff as they look.

The thing is, no one is stopping her from being the person she wants to be… provided she stays true to her roots. Being of Indian origin, however, is a superficial add-on for both the series and Devi, who unthinkingly uses whatever aspect of her ethnicity she feels comfortable with in her life, and turns away from everything else. That’s #TypicalTeenager behavior right there.

For example, when the series opens, Devi is sitting cross-legged and hands clasped, in front of an assembly of miniature statuettes and pictures of Hindu gods (I wouldn’t call the act praying; it’s more of her introduction to both the deities and the audience). “Hey gods, its Devi Vishwakumar, your favourite Hindu girl in the San Fernando Valley. What’s poppin’,” she begins. It’s Devi’s first day of school, and she feels the gods can make up for their slack last year. Devi had lost her father (Sendhil Ramamurthy) — the only person in the world who actually understood her — and subsequently the ability to use her legs.

Never Have I Ever is sold as a triumph of South Asian representation in mainstream Hollywood but its characters solve their problems in the most American way possible

Being able to walk again is no big matter (and she does, quite quickly), so Devi’s current wish-list to the gods becomes a bit simpler: to be invited to a party with alcohol and hard drugs, for her arm hair to thin out, and lastly, to really, really get a boyfriend — but not the nerds from her class. A dumb jock with good looks or, in her words, “a stone cold-hottie who would rock me all night” would do just fine.

When not fantasising about losing her virginity to the local school hottie, who has been repeating the same classes over and over again, Devi is often contemplating her place in the school’s social status. She and her two friends, Fabiola Torres (Lee Rodriguez) and Eleanor Wong (Ramona Young), are definitely nerds. The first in her list of priorities is to get the three of them to shed their old looks and adopt new, more relevant identities.

It doesn’t quite work for most — in fact, there is an undertone of shedding one’s natural personality to fit in with what is considered normal.

Devi, right until the end of the series, is a flawed character. She may have a big heart, and would at times try to right her wrongs only to fail miserably, but most of what she does has a self-serving trait.

On the other hand, the series explores quite a bit of subtext, and emphatically develops fitting backstories and moments of personal conflicts for each supporting character. Fabiola is a lesbian hoping to come out to her family. Elanor has a peculiar fashion sense and a natural flair for acting. The jock, Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet), initially comes out as an unidimensional idiot with, again, a personal self-serving attitude.

Actually, there are a lot of narcissistic impulses in Never Have I Ever. Very few characters, or episodes, are free from this affliction.

One of the truly relatable, and more well-rounded, characters is Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison), Devi’s nemesis from school, whose father is a celebrity lawyer. While most of the series is narrated by tennis hall-of-famer John McEnroe (he is one of better things about the series), Ben’s solo episode is narrated by actor Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine; Hot Rod), because the actor owes Ben’s dad.

Devi’s problems, nevertheless, get the most spotlight. Her actual, natural nemesis is her mum Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan) — the only character other than Devi one actually despises. Nalini has her own set of griefs, but despite this, her unyielding attitude in parenting becomes one of the series’ low points.

Most of the gripes one may have with Never Have I Ever are slight, because the problems the characters self-obsessively suffer through are petty. There is a strong emphasis on selling the story as a triumphant victory of South Asian representation in mainstream Hollywood (the representation is strictly Indian, not South Asian), but that’s hardly the case, especially since the characters try to solve their problems in the most American way possible.

One case study is Devi’s curvy, and presumably “hot” Indian cousin Kamala (Richa Moorjani), who is forced to meet an Indian suitor. Kamala has a secret hot-and-heavy affair with a good-looking Asian guy (Eddie Liu) from her University, who routinely scampers up the pipes of Nalini’s house and straight into Kamala’s room. While initially Kamala was head-over-heels in love with the guy, she — spoiler alert — immediately dumps him when her suitor turns out to be a chiseled Indian hunk.

Never Have I Ever, then, is a seriously American take on second-generation Indians aboard. Actually, a better way to see the series is to think of it as a successor to Clueless (1995), She’s All That (1999), Ten Things I Hate About You (1999), or other popular teen movies from the late ’90s. The series builds upon the ’90s teen-drama-comedy genre by embedding today’s conflicts; the problems aren’t big, nor is the series as big a benchmark as it is made out to be.

Produced by Mindy Kaling (based loosely on her own life), Never Have I Ever is fine, mostly engaging fluff that you can watch with your family (it is definitely in the realm of a PG rating) with some great music and a cast that, thankfully, doesn’t look like they’re in their late-twenties.

Rated 16+ by Netflix (for Language and Nudity) — one quickly realises, however, that the rating is an overkill for a family-friendly romantic comedy show of teens wrestling with emotional conflicts, that aren’t that hard to overcome in the first place

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 7th, 2020