Did the couples last?ĭid Akshay get married? Did Aparna find love? We checked in with the “Indian Matchmaking” participants to see if any pairings are still intact.īut “Indian Matchmaking” chooses not to focus on the emotional and psychological pressure the process puts you under. Television Netflix’s ‘Indian Matchmaking’ hints at happily ever after. Similarly, Aparna’s mother’s backstory touches on this oh-so-fleetingly when she says she was “forced” to get married at age 19. In them, I recognized so many of us who are in the system but not ready to get married just because biology and a mind-boggling belief in the concept of “the right time” dictates it.Īt one point in the series, Akshay tries to articulate this when he says that his family is unhappy right now, but that if he marries the wrong person, they will all be unhappy forever. Their conversations with their siblings and family members where they are in turn mocked, questioned over their reluctance and all but charged with being bad children because of the stress their pickiness causes their parents struck a deep chord. It was rather ironic then, that my sympathies lay the most with the two characters in “Indian Matchmaking” who come off as the least in need of it - jewelry designer Pradhyuman and businessman Akshay. Choice is an illusion, and saying no when there is no discernible reason to say so (and there almost always isn’t) will only get you branded as difficult and demanding. Our height, our complexion, our weight: Everything is up for scrutiny.
#Arranged marriage tv shows professional#
My double-barrel literature degrees and an unconventional professional choice were square edges on a round peg that most families did not quite know what to do with.įor me, the arranged marriage system compounded the sense of entitlement that many Indian men and their families feel, in which women are theirs to pick and choose from.
What did I mean I wasn’t willing to move countries after getting married? After all, marriage is about compromise.Įveryone wanted a professionally qualified bride but not a career-oriented one. What did I mean I was uncomfortable with the questions he asked? I should give him the benefit of doubt: marriage is a compromise. Matchmaker Sima Taparia’s favorite word, “compromise,” was repeated to me so many times that people around me may as well have been chanting it as a mantra. I wouldn’t say that all my encounters in the arranged marriage setup were terrible, but most were. Vyasar, as he worries throughout the show, would have indeed found the going very tough. They all came recommended through friends and family, that larger collective that works very hard to bring together not two individuals but two families - mirror images of one another, both wearing a thick cloak of respectability going back generations - into a union, under the guise of pragmatism, that promotes caste and economic hegemony.
(Aparna’s mum, in “Indian Matchmaking,” would have approved.) Almost all of them boasted of two to three degrees, similarly well-educated siblings and fathers in “senior” positions in either the government or the private sector. “The final choice will always be yours,” I was told reassuringly as more and more eligible men, all from the same religious community and caste as mine, started making weekend appearances in my parents’ living room. I was 23 when my parents started looking for a “suitable” match for me, a decision made without my views being sought.
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