The first article I read about the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking gave away the ending. I wasn’t planning to watch so it didn’t matter if Sima-from-Mumbai found her clients their perfect match.
Then it started. Colleagues from work – they had questions.
“Do arranged marriages still happen in India?”
“Are you watching Indian Matchmaking?”
“Do people in India always add the city they’re from when introducing themselves?”
My non-Indian workmates deserved more than ‘Yes’ ‘No’ and ‘Huh?’ so I watched Episode 1. Yeah, that’s one, where we meet Aparna and learn about the salt flats of Bolivia. Before binge-watching the remaining episodes, I skimmed some more articles, reading the show had triggered flashbacks of traumatic arranged introductions. Uh-oh.
Indian Matchmaking is a reality dating show in which men and women, mostly in their 30s, enlist the help of Mumbai-based matchmaker Sima Taparia to find their perfect life partner. Some are in India; others live and were raised in the US. Sima Aunty, with input from parents, the girls and boys, and incorporating her opinionated assessment, develops a criteria check-list. Once potential matches are identified, Sima doles out biodatas – resumes for the position of wife or husband. The boys’ mothers and the girls compare checklist to biodata. If the applicant is tall, cute and fair-skinned, then we, at times cringing, watch as the couple go on dates, with or without family members. Sima follows up and pulls out the next biodata or, after whining a bit about the difficult ones, with the help of an astrologer, numerologist, face reader, life coach and/or a matchmaker colleague specializing in ‘modern’ thinking clients, Sima finds more matches.
I don’t watch much reality TV so maybe the choppiness of Indian Matchmaking is normal. We meet ‘whatever mom says’ Akshay in Episode 1 and then he disappears, which is fine. After bouncing between New York, Houston and Bombay, in episode 7 we’re suddenly in Denver. Aparna is in almost every episode. Her journey does provide some comic relief, like the face reader’s description of Aparna’s perfect match: a subservient husband who won’t even say ’ouch’ if she slaps him twice. It loses something in the translation from Hindi, but this face reader needs his own show.
I watched the Hindi version of Indian Matchmaking but still could pick up a fair amount of the English. The dubbing seemed amateurish – a cast member speaking in Hindi, doesn’t need dubbing…in Hindi. Also annoying, including every ‘Thank you!’ and ‘Hi! spoken by random people. In the other direction, translating the Indian marriage trait of ‘adjusting’ as ‘flexible’ is just wrong. It is mother-in-law-speak for “You’ll get used to how we do things.”
The parents – not all were sweet parents who just wanted to see their children happily married, a common sentiment voiced by my non-Indian friends.
There’s Akshay’s mom commanding him to marry by November. Her other son is to produce a grandchild the following year. Akshay’s father, who rarely speaks at home, in passive-aggressive glory, when meeting the prospective bride, says her future mother-in-law is really strict. But Akshay, she will even forgive her son “seven murders,” 7 Khoon Maaf, the title (coincidentally?) of a film in which 7 husbands end up dead.
Rupam, the Sikh divorcee, for her father, the root of all marital evil is an ‘American,’ that other kind of American. So, instead of focusing on the biodata of a (divorced) match, the meeting with Sima turns into a heated discussion on the religion and ethnicity of the exes.
Aparna’s mother, warning her young daughters to never shame her – should we be surprised Aparna had high expectations, a need to control (55 minutes), a ‘my way or else’ approach? She wanted her girls to have choices, yet it’s the mother who rejects the sky-diving, axe-throwing suitor Srinivas. Maybe Aparna said no also. I couldn’t tell.
Only Ankita’s parents seemed to know their daughter. Perhaps that’s why Ankita, based in India, stood out. Although hopeful a matchmaker would introduce her to someone she could consider marrying, Ankita was not willing to lose herself in him or the process; quite the opposite, as we watch a confident Ankita speak proudly about her business.
In the end, my gut hurt watching the lows and highs of creative, articulate, accomplished women – Nadia falling apart when her date didn’t show or Aparna perking up when an astrologer said what she needed was a sapphire ring, a chant and an open ‘marriage’ window. Seriously? An open window in Houston only attracts mosquitoes and tree roaches.
Much has been written about the show’s explicit acceptance of the prejudices and –isms which still drive the filtering and selection process of Indian arranged marriages. No ‘we’ do not have to see the caste of the family, as Sima says, I can’t get het up about code words when in almost every case, height is the first superficial attribute commented on by Sima, the mothers, and/or is near the top of criteria lists. If one’s height is a more acceptable ‘preference,’ then why object to body-type and skin color or religion and similar background? Sometimes “North Indian” means just that to someone from northern India – a common language or similar family and culinary traditions passed down generation to generation. I also don’t agree skin color, or tone and hue – since the clients are brown – that ‘fair’ is code for upper-caste. This denies that the color spectrum for ‘brown’ exists within castes, within communities, within families. To hear in the last episode an (I assume) American-raised Indian woman say she’s looking for someone not too dark is depressing, but I doubt she was focused on caste or codes.
If you haven’t seen Indian Matchmaking yet, there are only two reasons to do so.
First, Vyasar, the student counselor raised by a single mother, with a father he’s hardly seen. This gem of a guy tries matchmaking even though means telling virtual strangers about his difficult childhood.
Second, the short and sweet snippets, a la When Harry Met Sally, of couples married for decades. Appearing at the beginning of most episodes, these spouses, some at ease, others not so much, tell the camera about their arranged introduction, what they saw in each other, what makes their marriage work. Their banter confirmed that (Aparna, this is for you) laughing together must be the secret. For me, the affection between these partners, more than Sima Aunty and criteria lists, exemplified arranged ‘love-after-the-wedding’ marriages.
Lovely, Reeta! I enjoyed that a lot!