What Indian Matchmaking cast members learned about marriage and themselves during the making of the Netflix series

Pradhyuman Maloo had rejected 150 women from their photos, but has a new perspective. Just as picky, Aparna Shewakramani says series gave her a chance to grow

A psychologist featured in the series about millennials consulting a matchmaker to find a life partner explains why it touched a nerve with viewers

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Sima Taparia, the star of Indian Matchmaker, offers an inside look at today’s Indian marriage customs in the Netflix reality show. Photo: Netflix

Published: 8:15am, 3 Aug 2020Updated: 10:25am, 3 Aug 2020

Indian Matchmaking, the Netflix show that follows Mumbai-based Sima Taparia as she matches privileged Indian singles in India and the United States, has become a cultural phenomenon after an explosion of memes, tweets and rants on social media since the premiere of the eight-part reality series on July 16.

Taparia offers an inside look at today’s Indian marriage customs as she unites couples and their families for a lifetime of love – provided they meet her checklist criteria of caste, class and complexion.

Through the series, we peek into the lives of seven singles who enlist Taparia’s services to find suitable life partners. Sima Aunty, as they call her, visits clients at their homes, interviewing them on their requirements and lifestyles. Occasionally, she calls on her entourage of panditjis, or experts, including face readers and life coaches, before consulting an astrologer on the couples’ horoscopes and feeding all this into her database to find a potential match.

So why are viewers rage-watching the show? Indian Matchmaking comes with toxic cultural truth bombs and blatant absurdities, and it skewers the double standards the country’s foreign-educated upper-middle-class. Despite Twitter rants against misogyny, colourism, casteism and beauty requirements, the show reveals that, in traditional Indian families, choosing a life partner is still very much a business transaction.

It is Aparna Shewakramani, a 35-year-old lawyer from Houston in the US state of Texas, who steals the show with her feisty 55-minute dating rule, scepticism of men who are ignorant about Bolivia’s salt flats, and blatant rejection of children at weddings.

Shewakramani knows what she wants and unapologetically speaks her mind. In the matchmaking universe, she is painted as the picky, rude antagonist and a headache to match, while the men on the show get away with being indecisive and shallow.