What a viewMade in Heaven: Amazon Prime’s audacious look at ‘crazy rich’ Indian weddings

Sunglasses are recommended safety equipment for watching Amazon Prime Video’s Made in Heaven, so outrageous is the bling on display. But the dazzling is de rigueur, because when it comes to ostentation nothing exceeds like the fabled big fat Indian wedding.

Tara Khanna (Sobhita Dhulipala) and Karan Mehra (Arjun Mathur) are wedding planners running New Delhi company Made in Heaven, which does a spectacular line in Bollywood-style nuptial blowouts. Many clients and their families are shimmering beacons of vulgarity, but behind the tastelessness and entitlement, below the false-fingernail-deep glitz and glamour, lurk human stories keenly observed throughout the show’s nine-part debut season.

And in a fast-modernising society, in which keeping up appearances is a fundamental human right (for the rich), there are plenty to explore. Cue generational and other struggles as odious tycoons demand traditional ceremonies for reluctant scions – with a side order of private investigations into potentially gold-digging future spouses; as thorny LGBT questions puncture old certainties (especially when it seems Karan himself is in the closet); and as class division, dowry disputes and virginity tests sabotage alleged true love.

Watch the trailer for Made in Heaven below. Warning: contains strong language.

As the series progresses the more ironic its title seems, with politics masquerading as romance and relationships falling foul of bitchiness, betrayal and bed-hopping. The last even undermines impeccable, in-control Tara, deceived by her own wealthy husband.

Far from being a paean to pampered youth and unfettered privilege, Made in Heaven is a trenchant commentary on contemporary India’s growing pains. Nor does the prism through which those pains – not all of which belong to the upper class – are refracted seem spent. Filming of a second season of what is surely essential viewing in the mansions of Delhi has already begun.