Indian Matchmaking On Netflix

We all care greatly who our kids spend the rest of their lives with. How far would you go to do something about it? How honest would you be about how far you would go? Even to yourself… 😉

Indian Matchmaking is produced by Smriti Mundhra who, in her 20s, hired Sima Taparia, the matchmaking professional from Mumbai, featured on the show. Mundhra’s mother whom she describes as otherwise “progressive,” had at one time still been convinced her daughter would be best served in a marriage with someone of similar Hindu Marwadi background. (Mundhra ultimately married a Brazilian Irishman she met in college.) Taparia also features in Mundhra’s earlier documentary effort with Sarita Khurana, A Suitable Girl, which follows 3 educated, financially independent middle-classed Indian women who face mounting pressure to get married.

The overriding theme is, regardless how “progressive,” or not, (and certainly even when we are not Indian), a part of us would feel more comfortable “departing from tradition” only after at least having explored how much we can keep to.

“Sima Auntie” doesn’t just travel around India, she looks for Indian matches from all over the world. Participants on the show include lawyers and high school teachers, businessmen, designers… at least one arrived in New York when she was a little girl and now a refreshingly honest lawyer, emphasises she would like to be paired with a North Indian man who is an American citizen, like herself. (Read: Indian girl who spent at least part of her childhood in New York. Career woman who went to law school. Still making an effort to remember her Indian roots.)

This is what I truly find fascinating – the impossibly complex blend of old traditions, wisdoms and roots with further education, careers, and the influence of other cultures. Also the wide spectrum of where youth and parents land on this position. We may not all be Indian, but many of the questions in the (otherwise “fun”) clip below aren’t specific to only Indian culture. The internal (at least mild) struggle we have to figure out where we stand in preserving some of our original culture, while recognising how the world is changing, starts off a very personal one. And like it or scoff at it, this brand of “reality tv” still provides talking points and an education…

(For a more in-depth look at the show and its concepts however, see Al Jazeera’s interview with producer Mundhra, Sunil Hiranandani, CEO of SirfCoffee who runs a dating site for Indian professionals worldwide, and Parul Bhandari who did her PhD on matchmaking practices, far below.)

Show producer Mundhra is not surprised about the strong reactions that came about in the wake of Season 1, and the reason is that she believes Indian values and traditions are “very much in flux this generation, in a way that hasn’t been the case in the last 5, 6 generations” (what does everyone else think? Our cultures too? Quite possibly, and I think it’s because of the internet and social media.)

UK-based Hiranandani (who used to work at HSBC in London btw) brings up interestingly that more women from smaller cities in India than men use his dating app (which tweaks the original traditional criteria – rather than horoscopes, height and skin colour, there are questions about whether a marriage partner likes cold weather, eats meat, wants children, etc) hoping to escape the limited prospects of her locally arranged marriage. Also, “The option of walking away with everyone none the wiser is very compelling.” (Woman’s real right to choose*? 🙂 )

Also found some Indian Youtubers commenting about the show. Tanmay Bhat thinks Sima Auntie should be using a spreadsheet, “Just because the thing you’re doing is from ancient India doesn’t mean the way you do it also needs to be ancient”. (Ok caveat when he switches away from English I can’t follow….. but I love his irreverent cackle!)

Behensplaining’s Shrishti Dixit and Kusha Kapila ……don’t appear to have noticed Sima Auntie’s apparent lack of spreadsheet expertise:

“Hi. I’m form number 2266 and I’m looking for a suitable life partner within my own caste.. because I want to carry forward the systemic injustices and inequalities that are caste based in our country and have been propagated for generations in my own family as well.”

“What’s up ladies, I’m form 1941. ….I like all things vintage.. just like my ideologies… Because tradition, bro – like my father… grandfather… I don’t have enough personality to do things different than them…. arranged marriage is my only resort… ..two things should always be pure. Firstly your heart. Secondly, your bloodline.”

(In case you’re wondering, Kusha, Ms Savage I-Like-All-Things-Vintage impersonator, is married to another popular Indian social media star, Zorawar Singh Ahluwalia).

<pause> OK there are comments after their video, asking if “Whatsapp Group Where All My Friends B*tch About Their Husbands And Mothers Inlaw” really exists. And then there are replies, “Yes they exist, I am part of one.”

<cough> Next subject please! Show producer Mundhra does qualify that from her parents’ perspective, women followed the tradition whereby the wife moves from father’s house to father inlaw’s house – and so the easiest transition for their daughter would be to marry within the same caste and background. “Meat eater marrying into family that doesn’t eat meat” or vice versa would make it harder to adjust… “You want your daughter to feel as comfortable as possible..”

Hiranandani of the SirfCoffee dating app for Indians adds his own theory, that the “progressive parent” who has sent their child abroad to study still expects them to rein it back in when it’s time to marry. Their child maybe has “3 vetoes,” before they settle down. In other words, if you’re on your fourth match, you’re probably not going to get out of the marriage anymore 😀 (That’s what he says in the interview below)

Some participants on the show became popular on social media post-show, but I don’t think anyone got married in the end. Sima Auntie’s comment about Nadia Jagessar (pics below from her Instagram), “Nadia is beautiful (and 5ft 9″)… very good family values, very good natured… but she is Guyanese, it will be difficult for me to match… with a traditional Indian boy.” I had to Google it. And still ask one of my Indian ex-colleagues – he explains the majority of Guyanese Indians are from the Dalit caste.

Then there’s Akshay Jakhete, aged 25, Mumbai-based businessman from an upper-middle class family and dubbed the “Momma’s Boy,” and Radhika Somani, Chartered Accountant from Udaipur, who probably came closest to tying the knot.

Observers of the show noted the intense familial pressure Akshay was under to get married, because the initial “plan” was his older brother (who had arranged-married not too long ago) and wife would then conveniently have their child and buckle down to take care of the baby after Akshay’s wedding, which everyone expected was going to be a blowout affair. (Obviously Akshay’s family sincerely thought this plan was fine, otherwise they wouldn’t say it openly right). But then they didn’t do the big party, everyone managed to rein it in in the end. I think that deserves some respect too. It’s very easy for people who do not put themselves out there to watch….. and judge. But truth is these families (who btw are upper middle class and don’t exactly need to get rich and famous and subject themselves to the criticism of every netizen) allow people like us to observe… and learn something, about how other cultures are also changing with the world.

It’s highlighted several times on the show and in subsequent interviews and Youtuber comments when Akshay’s mum keeps showing him her blood pressure readings as she tries to get him to marry someone. My Mum’s Blood Pressure Is Fine is almost a meme now 😛

Akshay went so far as a pre-engagement ceremony, but pulled out after. In post-show interviews, besides repeatedly saying it’s nothing to do with Radhika or her family, Akshay makes a very good point about where his cold feet and Sleepless Night Before came from – he said it occurred to him he had had practically no conversations with Radhika that were not on camera and he had been very uncomfortable getting to know someone he would spend the rest of his life with that way.

(Nadia says something similar – that off-camera “changes the dynamic between myself and the matches… it helped me learn more about myself and what I’m looking for in a future partner.“)

At which point I’d like to highlight participants really do take marriage very seriously, they really do see it as forever. Indeed, when asked by Al Jazeera (far below) why there were no Muslim candidates, Mundhra explains that it was already very challenging to find participants who would sincerely try to be themselves on the show and agree to put such a private traditional process on camera.

So y’know, people really put themselves out there. It wasn’t easy – sweet Nadia gets “ghosted” twice on camera, by a guy she appeared to really connect with, and it’s humiliating, she cries about it. After that he apparently tries to contact her again and she stops responding (he says this in post-show interviews).

There’s another “potential mother-inlaw” whose go-getter lawyer daughter is matched with a dashing 6ft 2″ businessman and published author with his own podcast, whom she then calls…. a “loser”. Which is maybe horribly frightening to a lot of men out there 😀 But well, she says unapologetically that ever since they arrived in New York when her daughter was very little, she has demanded of her own daughter, “Don’t ever let me down, don’t ever let me look bad in our community… I don’t ever want to see a B on a report card… I don’t want 2 (college) degrees, I want 3…” I mean, it’s intimidating – I’m scared to date her – but it’s not hypocritical, y’know? It’s not like My Kid So Capable And You Not Worthy and then actually the kid is…. umm, not.

Meantime, Sima Auntie famously calls lawyer daughter Aparna Shewakramani “too fussy & stubborn,” not wanting to provide her with too many choices. Aparna calls her out on it, saying she only ultimately rejected a couple guys (while still staying in touch with some of them, just not y’know, actually marrying them), whereas there were male clients of Sima’s who went through over 150 bios without wanting to meet anyone.)

Ok back up a bit and this where I open mouth, insert foot: Please do not neglect the possibility that so-called “scary-parent” who wants her son to marry the girl she approves of could be far more supportive of said girl than a parent whose son (or daughter) chooses someone the parent really doesn’t want. Or for that matter if they think you are just the luckiest person in the world, that their kid should deign to show interest in you, and they are therefore doing you a huge favour by nodding in your direction.

All I’m sayin’ is, “scary parent” in your corner is not all bad right… Oh, oh no. Woman Doth Protest Too Much Syndrome. Everyone’s gonna think I’M. Scary Parent.

ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANYONE YOU MIGHT KNOW IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. 😀

I know no one. No actually I do know someone. I’m trying to find old friends anyway, so here goes. Back then, decades ago, he’d been openly gay since we were about 18. We were at Catholic Junior College together, but not in the same class. (I think he was born into a Christian family, but not Catholic. And I was from a relatively staunch Buddhist/Taoist upbringing.) He went to NUS while I went to NTU. He was going to study law. He is brilliant at English Lit and Language. And he beat me out to the GP prize in JC 😀 Leaving voice messages “Hey — When we going to complain about men again?” always got me an enthusiastic call-back.

Here’s the parenting story – I met his mum when I attended his birthday party at his parents’ house. His younger brother (who was around 16 at the time) and I were the only people at the party who were straight. My friend had not wanted his younger bro there at all: “I’m very worried about him. He has looked up to me in every other way. But he’s not like me in this, so I need him not to want to be, just because he thinks it’s cool or something.” (Both brothers are nice to be around – polite, kind, younger bro is a very cheerful kid..) Their mum – very nice to me. HANG ON I’M NOT DONE.

I remember something else at this party – someone asked my friend if his mum was home and he said “Yeah, upstairs.” And then this older guy (there were a few obviously older guys at the party, while the rest of us were college-aged) snarked, “Probably crying her eyes out.” Everyone either pretended not to hear or else kinda laughed uncomfortably.

Until today I have a lot of respect for my friend’s mum and consider her to be a pretty strong person. It is much easier to “be a parent” and appear to be a “good” parent when your child comfortably fits into all the societal norms. It is infinitely harder for those who don’t fit nicely.

Some guys weren’t very nice to my friend in school, and he increasingly found friendship and acceptance among other circles, particularly once he was in university. His mum had him have his birthday party at home where he invited all his friends, and she stayed home that day. (And they sent the bro out on errands, but I remember him being very determined to come to the party and so he finished early and hurried back. I believe my friend greeted him with, “What are you doing back so soon? Out. Now.” When his bro insisted on staying, my friend announced to the party, “Everyone. This is my younger bro. He is barely 16. And he is very straight.“)

This friend and I didn’t exactly just drift apart. The last lunch we had together, he was starting a serious relationship with an older guy, while I had a college boyfriend. He looked so happy as he gushed about his new relationship. “We talked about it. I know I want children someday. ...It would mean a lot, if our surrogate is someone close. Someday, would you…?”

On one hand, I can count the number of times I have received compliments that are that sincere, powerful and heartfelt. On the other hand I did not know how I was ever going to do it. Not my family, not my boyfriend, no boy I had ever dated, not even my “crazy” ex who married someone 2 months after they met at a demonstration in Ecuador – don’t scoff, they’re still happily married today with 2 kids and they live in Toronto – would be supportive of me doing a Phoebe From Friends. Even if it wasn’t triplets. I had never thought about it**, didn’t know where I stood and didn’t know what to say (and that’s pretty much what I said).

It was heartbreakingly not Yay! Imma Have My Gay Friend’s Babies Someday! Friends And Family Forever! It would have been so easy to lie. It was impossible for me to lie. It was too important to him. The question was a powerful reminder particularly back then, almost 2 decades ago, how we came from very different worlds and had very different growing pains. He stopped calling me back.

Isn’t that just the most ironic thing, one of the most beautiful compliments I have ever received is also how I lost one of my closest friends. Life sucks, that’s the beauty of it, every single thing is a package of goods and bads, nothing exists in this life that is only good or only bad and you only really not feel any pain or stress or discomfort when you’re dead. 😀

OK that… was my sincerest attempt at not just sitting back and doing a Lookit Dat – They Matchmaking! post. (Blog be no true telling without putting some of yourself out there.) Like I said, we all. Struggle. With the mix of modern and progressive, and tradition and family ideals.

<pause> Ok I feel like I have to also put it out there that I believe in saving something exclusively for marriage. Yes, I have 4 tattoos, 8 piercings, have wine almost every night, and have also never been drunk and believe you must share something exclusively with your intended life partner only. It’s because I believe marriage to be one of the hardest things in the world to maintain. Even if you “get it all correct” the first time round by picking the “right” person (and family), there’s an entire life journey ahead of you – significant life events (or trauma) are going to inevitably change you both. You will need all the help you can get. If there is something you have only ever done with your marriage partner, I believe it contributes to helping you keep from drifting too irrevocably far apart.

It was T.S. Eliot who said “The love of (2 people) is only explained and made reasonable by the higher love, or else is simply the coupling of animals.” No it was not easy (for me either), because peer pressure (I married the 10th guy I dated btw). But think this: If you ever intend to spend the rest of your life with just one person, you do not want to increase your own risk of maybe someday thinking, Damn, But That Other Person Was So Much Better And Now I’m Never Going To Have That Again. Ah Well…

Back to Matchmaking.

*”Women’s “real” right to choose”.. Aparna Shewakramani, the driven and ambitious 34-year old lawyer on the show with what is dubbed “extreme honesty,” explains that practically the only family member one will ever get to choose is their spouse. Post-show, she developed a following among women inspired by her confidence in holding out for the right guy, getting calls from women thinking of ending bad relationships, or having second thoughts about going through with their own marriages.

Good for her. As a fresh grad who only knew that she really, really wanted a career, I planned to freeze my eggs if I hadn’t met The One by the age of 30. Just to remove the biological clock factor from consideration. (At their births, we had the kids’ cordblood harvested and stored with cordlife as well.)

And here’s the interview with show producer Smriti Mundhra, UK-based Sunil Hiranandani of SirfCoffee, and Parul Bhandari, PhD scholar of matchmaking practices in India:

**My kids know this story – How I Became A Mum. Partly because Daughter has started asking whether she should have kids etc. As I said indirectly with the egg-freezing and the cordblood harvesting, technological advancement provides you far more options today, and they DON’T have to only be the ones that may cause you concern about whether you may have compromised your personal moral compass or values.

Sima Auntie can use that spreadsheet, no?

Yet there will always also be a factor that is unknown, no matter how “clever” humans and technology get.

Obviously this story is with the kids’ permission..

In the wake of the ICBC (1398HK) IPO of 2006 I had lost about 8kg off my (already slightly underweight) frame due to unprecedented deal volume and the craziest stock market run-up at the time. As in, because the market is running up, the options you just executed for your RMs keep knocking out and their clients keep re-locking in. It’s good commission for your RMs, you have to keep moving fast but… it’s not something that should be done indefinitely because what goes up…. if you don’t know when to stop and wait it out (and this is not easy), you get trapped where the price is too high and you then start losing a lot of money as the market corrects. I mention so you know how different my past life was, and how different my priorities were.

On several weeks’ break to regroup (and already in the middle of other job interviews – this is normal for the industry, the headhunters call you and do everything Because Commission and you just have to agree to show up where they tell you to, and not be a monkey in interviews), I tested pregnant. Now, I have a mild medical condition that makes it pretty hard to conceive without getting off the medication I had taken steadily for about 5 years, so you can imagine how unexpected that pregnancy was.

Leaving the gynea’s office for the first time, Kings asked what I thought, and I said “About what? It’s a peanut“. Don’t they all look like peanuts on the ultrasound at that stage. It’s hard to imagine, if you’ve never thought about it before, that those could really grow into people someday.

Today, you know one such “peanut” as the guy who used to go by “Rockstar” on this blog.

Obviously, “What If” has crossed my mind before. At the time when I tested positive my life was very, very different than it is now. What If I hadn’t taken that double bar on the pregnancy test (that I bought “just to rule it out”) quite that seriously at the time? All I knew before that was a completely different life. I was right where I wanted to be. But it was also clear I should probably not go back to the job where I weighed barely 45kg on my 5ft 6″ frame and couldn’t seem to get my weight up. But it was “only” a “peanut”, after all…

pps: And if you’re still here…

Kings and I were pretty broke when we wanted to get married.. London School of Economics is an expensive school, Kings had a lotta study debt as well… We paid USD 750 to drive round the Strip in a cadillac with the top down, and Elvis in attendance. Other than that, everyone took their time on the other stuff…

My mother and my mother in-law each had their own blowout dream mother-of-the-bride/groom wedding parties in different parts of Malaysia (our hometowns are 5 hours apart) that we showed up to as “the wedding couple.” I still think that’s the best way to go – everyone gets the party they want, and it keeps them busy and happy…) I remember at “one of our weddings” (:D) we were introduced to some very well-dressed little kids, “and here are your flower boy and girl!” and we had ZERO idea where those kids came from 😀

We played our Elvis Wedding At Little White Chapel on video. In it, there is a bearded guy in a beanie sitting with his girl in the pews. We pulled them in off the street to be our witnesses. (I know I tell it flippantly, but caveat: a wedding like that – still legal. And their pastor – is a real pastor. Almost no one else in our families was Christian. So now you know why we really got married at the Little White Chapel 🙂 )

My grandma told me supportively she thought Elvis was very handsome. Yes, and he told me his hair and makeup took longer than mine did. (Ok, mine didn’t take any time at all haha) After our gig he went on tour in Taiwan.

Even later still… For our own colleagues and friends we had a zero-traditions fusion dinner at Flutes At Fort Canning. The best food and wine we could afford to treat them to. My “wedding dress” was a USD 78 embroidered satin bustier from Victoria’s Secret which I wore with a tailored circle skirt because I thought keeping an actual white wedding dress spotless through the ages would be too difficult, but somehow I didn’t want to “borrow” one either. My other outfit – separates from Anteprima. Oh, and I eventually picked my engagement/wedding diamond off a spreadsheet. (Hear that, @Tanmay Bhat? Colour, Clarity…) The setting is high-end, but the stone – well, GIA certification is the same the world over, and you can save up to 40% on the actual diamond. On the same stone with GIA certification (you can get it certified separately). Mine came from a trader in NY.. People just happen to trade them on spreadsheets in round cuts and per carat <shrugs>. Unless of course you want the romance story that comes with the little blue box. That’s your choice, it’s your wedding, but at least know that is what you would pay for <shrugs again>...