Indian Matchmaking is a reality TV show. It is about unmarried Indians in India or USA trying to find a partner via a matchmaker. It is a hidden gem. The bad part is that the matchmaker, the parents, and the people who are wanting to get married (most of the time) have a tone which is offensive, meaning you will see a lot of casteism and discrimination based on religion.
Sima Taparia is the show’s matchmaker. She has a traditional matchmaking consultation style. She listens to families. A mother’s criteria could be the appropriate height, appropriate education level, appropriate age, appropriate personal characteristics, bla bla bla… If we add the appropriate religion and caste, bingo! The criteria are so specific that sometimes Sima has a hard time finding some candidates. Anyways when she finds candidates, she prints their qualities on a paper and gives them to the family and the person who wants to get married. The funny thing is that people who are looking for other people to get married eliminates some people on very absurd grounds. A lawyer almost eliminated a guy just because in his file he had something like “funny”. Apparently, this lawyer didn’t like comedy (?). There are a lot of other people who doesn’t give each other a chance for other absurd reasons. You are getting help from a matchmaker just because you couldn’t marry, at least don’t be that picky!
One of the reasons why I was interested in this show was that it reminded me of arranged marriages in my country. It is so interesting that a very similar culture is present in India, thousands of kilometers away from where I live. Marriage is SO important that people get nuts to get their child married. They pay a matchmaker. On top of that, they pay a huge amount for a glamorous wedding that they will pay for 5-10 years, and call it “happiness” (this may sound harsh because I live near a wedding hall and the sound and the pomp they create without people living near drives me crazy). There are parents in this show who treat their children like it’s their debt to have a marriage and give them grandchildren. Getting married, having children is like a step in a staircase of life for them. You can’t not do it. Everybody has to do it. If you don’t, then you are an outsider. I wish people gave importance to loving your children and partner rather than the act of getting married and making lots of children they can’t properly take care of.
