Indian Matchmaking

Disclaimer: I am not Indian. Found this show via an Instagram account I follow. Some of the characters I found very real, complex and charismatic. Other story lines I turned out. Overall, glad I watched this. It was entertaining, funny at times, poignant.

I came into this with some bias against arranged marriage. But this show changed my perspective. Arranged dating and committing does sound refreshing and rare in this casual dating era. The people all seem quite reasonable (except that picky guy really irritated me). The stories are light hearted but watchable. Some stories are really sweet and fill you with hope. I do wish that there's more follow up with each character instead of just jumping from new person to new person.

This show is everything I love about a good Indian melodrama: children who disappoint, comedy villains, neurotic mothers, ruthless aunty rivalries and savage passive aggression. What's not to like?

This show is well done. It pulls the curtain off and shows India's elite for what they are.

In fact, it is a very white washed show and the warts are all hidden. There is no talk of dowry, honour killings, inter-caste marital trouble and a lot else.

In a way, Indian Matchmaking was needed to show Netflix woke peeps just how medieval our thinking is. All the affectations notwithstanding, marriage boils down to your partner being from a "good family" (Code for caste) or "fair-skinned" or "not from a small town" even if we serve "Miso Paneer" or have been to the "Bolivian salt flats". It might seem weird initially, but it's actually just so telling how so many millenials and NRIs, many who carry a chip on their shoulders, are the worst perpetrators of some of these crazy values.

The fact that so many people cringed watching it only proves how real those people felt to us. How familiar the settings, the relations, the pandits were. And how real an aunty Sima Aunty was. The appeal lies in the fact that whether you laugh or scream it's difficult to deny that the whole thing has a wallop of truth to it.

It shows you that those people are not a small segment of society. This is still Us in 2020.

I like this show. I went through an arranged marriage process 20 years ago and would never ever put my kids through it or recommend it. I relate to this show a lot but it has a lot of issues. First, I like the host, she is no-drama and tells it like it is without mincing words. She is correct in the way families think, and obviously most families choosing to go this route are traditional. A modern family would probably not encourage arranged marriages. Being completely honest, a lot of the people wanting to get married aren't your typical good looking ones, they are pretty average, but sure if that is why they need a matchmaker to help find someone.

There are lots of likable characters, and the overbearing MIL make me fume because I could relate to it, and it is so representative of Indian MILs and mama's boys. I had a real issue with the host's not recognizing and respecting independent women. Aparna was so off-putting and arrogant. Pradyuman was also so arrogant, feeling like he deserved the best. All the arrogant ones wanted to marry up. Entitlement in the man and his family is so common, where the woman is expected to adjust more. I was fuming at Geeta's "women need to adjust more". Obviously given the largely traditional families' preferring arranged marriage, she wouldn't be able to get a good proposal for the independent constantly advice me to do the same. Then when the woman told Sima how Geeta hadn't been fully honest, Sima sent her to a life coach, for what? Just because she wasn't pleased that Geeta didn't tell her the guy was a divorce from the get-go? This is not something you hide. For most Indian families that is a deal-breaker and you have to be honest about it before the meeting is arranged else it wastes everybody's time. Sima completely wrote that off and sent her to a life coach as if it was her fault and because she isn't "photogenic" she wouldn't get a match. I have SO many issues with this show because it keeps the bad part of tradition alive, and the matchmaker's job depends on the patriarchal society, but it is truly representative of the culture. Truly representative. Which is the sad part. I would not recommend the arranged marriage process for anybody, the family pressure is awful and does not a marriage make, in fact too much involvement from the family breaks the marriage and causes a lot of pain for the son and his wife.

Sima also doesn't take accountability for her matches. While it is her job to match them and let them deal with everything like adults, she should have done something about holding the guy accountable who stood up the girl twice. Instead when the girl told her about it, Sima kept putting pressure on her to call him and find out what happened and also kept saying "give me good news". What good news? The guy stood her up and embarrassed her in front of her friends, please don't ask her to give you good news, the guy doesn't care about her and she will never be happy. So Sima just wanted to have a number of matches or a % of success in matchmaking and took no accountability. She can be very dismissive. At least she is not like Patty in Millionaire Matchmaker!!