“What’s your favourite colour?” Vikash asks somewhere in the middle of Indian Matchmaking S3. His date, Namrata, has been selected from several biodatas by “top matchmaker from Mumbai” Sima Taparia. Namrata was born and raised in Ahmedabad but moved to the US for higher studies and stayed on to work. Vikash is a 40-year-old emergency room doctor who has lived in the US all his life. They might work because, says Sima aunty, they are both extroverts.
When Namrata responds that she likes bright colours, Vikash quips that he’s a pretty bright colour. She laughs at this dull attempt at a joke, and the next second, Vikash is speaking to the camera, calling her “polite”. “Sima aunty did a great job,” he says.
On paper Namrata is exactly what Vikash is looking for: Tall, vivacious, extroverted, Hindi-speaking (“because communication is important,” Vikash tells Sima aunty). He also wants a Brahmin girl, despite not being a practising Brahmin himself—because “community” matters. But there’s a catch: Namrata has an Indian accent, which is the only reason Vikash offers for why he doesn’t feel a spark—even though Namrata clearly does. It’s back to the drawing board for Sima aunty. Watching this scene play out, I feel her ennui: This drill was beginning to feel very old.
A Suitable Girl
Indian Matchmaking premiered on Netflix in July 2020 to much fanfare. Before Indian Matchmaking, creator Smriti Mundhra had put out a critically-acclaimed documentary, A Suitable Girl, which premiered at the TriBeCa Film Festival. “That film was really from the perspective of young people,” she said to Decider in 2020. “I think it’s as much a coming-of-age story as anything else, about young women in India going through the process with their family.”
Born from the observation that “marriage and the culture that we get married in is a very defining thing for a lot of South Asian people”, Mundhra delved deeper into the marriage industrial complex with Indian Matchmaking, from the perspective of those that service it. Enter: Sima aunty, an Indian matchmaker with clients all over the world.
Much of the series’ initial popularity stemmed from the fact that it was a rare unscripted reality show that focused on the Indian diaspora. What’s more, Indian Matchmaking combined the light-hearted spirit of dating reality TV (Love Is Blind to Love Island) with a documentarian’s eye and intent to capture a cultural phenomenon, especially one that was witnessing its own generational churn.
As far as reality shows go, Indian Matchmaking has had more value to add as a conversation topic on how a billion-plus people think about marriage, dating, life partners, monogamy, and the dream of the happily-ever-after. It’s relatable, raw, relevant and unflinching: all excellent qualities from an audience-retention POV. In the grey days of the pandemic, it made us care about its characters. It got us invested.
Hallmarks of Indian Matchmaking
Sharp cinematography and editing are hallmarks of Indian Matchmaking: The team’s ability to capture and highlight the very specific ways that the Indian upper-class and upper-middle-class navigate the world is hilarious and often revealing. Add to that casting and direction: To find someone like the blunt, witty and independent-minded Aparna Shewakramani or the maverick Pradhyuman Maloo is the dream of any creator. To be able to bring out their real no-holds-barred selves—indeed, the discrepancy between who they are and who they want to be—on screen is the rarest of talents.
In season 3 of Indian Matchmaking, we meet more of this tribe of young Indians from around the world. From London, there’s Priya, a divorcee and “top knot appreciator” who is asked, by Sima aunty, to lower her expectations, but who seems to have a clearer idea than most about what she wants. From Delhi, there’s Rushali Rai—reappearing after a brief foray in S1 as a prospective bride for Pradhyuman—whose primary relationship in life is with her mother.
Also from Delhi is Pavneet, a Punjabi girl who runs a PR business and has a sense of humour that helps her make it through a world for which she’s “too tall”. From the US, there is Vikash, of course, very conscious of his age; and Arti, a Sindhi girl, also with a business and a mind of her own, who brings some of that Aparna sass the show’s been missing for a while.
It may or may not be Mundhra’s intention, but there is a portrait that emerges of Indian or Indian-origin youth: The girls appearing to be headstrong, progressive-minded, forging their own paths; the boys, inheriting a lot of their cultural baggage and parents’ worldview. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that any woman in want of a partner does not want to hear prospective grooms say, “she should be just like my mother.”
60-70-percent rule
At the heart of all this is Sima Taparia, self-professed matchmaker extraordinaire who is routinely frustrated by her clients’ need for chemistry—a concept she does not seem to fathom—and inability to stomach her 60-70-percent rule. Indeed, this season, she seems to have come into her own. When Aparna told her her age when they first met, in the first season, she nodded politely. This season, when her daughters explain to her that young people aren’t willing to get married quite so soon, she is adamant: “Over 30 is too late, too late!”
Sima Taparia may have over 500 clients around the world. But it is noteworthy that none of her hard work has translated into actual nuptials on the show so far. Except for Viral and Aashay, who were introduced last season by Sima aunty, and seem to be headed in the right direction. Pradhyuman may credit his experience on the show for “pushing his boundaries” but he found and married Ashima outside of Sima aunty’s purview. The same is true for crowd-favourite Shital Patel and Niraj Mehta, and Arti and Jamal (the one cross-community couple).
The success of reality shows lies in one word: attention. Kim Kardashian is a billionaire today because she and her family were able to hold it for over a decade. Bigg Boss and MTV Roadies continue to rule to the roost on Indian cable TV because they mine the “cruelty, belligerence, superficiality and shallowness” (as Time magazine called it), of their cast of characters for the same thing. There is a certain vicarious thrill in depicting and viewing ‘realness’: In all its regressive, redundant glory.
But here’s the thing about Indian Matchmaking. It doesn’t aim to exaggerate the ridiculousness and absurdity of the much-scoffed-at tradition of arranged marriage. Mundhra has repeatedly said in interviews their intention has been to create a space for wider conversations, when they do not edit out presumptions about, say, fairer skin or height or “community” values.
Lack of diversity
But Indian Matchmaking does not push the needle either. Lately, the show has been accused of a lack of diversity. Three seasons of upper-caste, upper-class Hindus (mostly): It does seem to be getting repetitive. Wouldn’t you wish to see, say, Parsis, a community legendarily with its own quirks and notions of marriage? What of, say, the LGBTQ+ community, when same-sex marriage is legal in the UK and the US, and a hotly debated subject in India at the moment?
Of course, Indian Matchmaking is guided by the scope and limitations of its chief protagonist Sima Taparia. Her skill set may not extend to other religions or “alternative” sexualities. Even though she has herself declared, her job is to shepherd those matches that have been pre-ordained in heaven. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if Mundra and crew expanded Indian Matchmaking into a multiverse of matchmakers?
Without the shock value and the novelty that reality TV is built on, all we have is a cast of characters that the audience cares about less each season. Indian Matchmaking may not hold the world’s attention for much longer. Mundhra, who has a nose for good stories and a talent for impeccable storytelling—foremost proof of which is her Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary St Louis Superman—appears to have realised this. It’s why there’s a spinoff, called Jewish Matchmaking, in the works at Netflix.
From the trailers, Jewish Matchmaking looks to be yet another promising roast of a people caught in the grind between traditional values and the modern world. To be sure, the institution of marriage has and will continue to be a hotbed of entertainment for as long as it lasts. I’d love to continue watching “desis” play marriage mart musical chairs for a bit longer—but perhaps with more chairs for people who play to their own tune.
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