WHAT’S WRONG WITH ‘INDIAN MATCHMAKING’?
In an essay in The New York Times (April 21, 2023), Ms. Iva Dixit launches a harsh assault on “Indian Match Making,” a Netflix show. The origins of Ms. Dixit’s scorn are undisclosed but she does admit to her own bias (see below) against matchmaking and aunties. The Indian Matchmaking show is, after all, just a variation of several other dramatized reality shows ranging from “Love is Blind,” to “Married at First Sight” to the many other shows reviewed in this article:
The main anomaly of “Indian Matchmaking” is the odd juxtaposition of an old woman from India as mating coach to a much younger generation born and/or brought up in very different cultures / circumstances / countries (like the US and UK). But, this is acknowledged throughout the show by the participants who turn to “Sima Aunty” as they call her endearingly. The singles in the show rely on the Indian Matchmaker only as a last resort or as a supplement to their own search.
Ms. Dixit’s review of the show veers off into a criticism of caste-based marriages in India which is not the focus in the Netflix show. Indeed, in the most recent Season 3 of the show, there is an explicit discussion of caste and religion not being important in marriages. Other issues such as age, personal chemistry and language often become hurdles.
To be fair to Ms. Dixit, she discloses her own biases:
Ms. Dixit’s criticisms of the show and its main character (Sima Auntie) may arise from the writer’s own antipathy to the “aunties” of India (Ms. Dixit says: “To people like me, who grew up in this third-party matchmaking milieu, Sima Taparia or Sima Aunty (a nickname she gives herself) is just that — an aunty, an archetype we’ve known and avoided all our lives: the obnoxious and overbearing relative, neighbor or acquaintance with zero sense of boundaries.”)
Ms. Dixit also declares axiomatically: “Throughout history, the coming together of two people in matrimony (holy or otherwise) has never been just about the union itself — it is the broader institution that reveals the deepest anxieties (financial, religious or racial) undergirding a society.”
Matrimony has “never been about the union itself”? Really? It’s about “the deepest anxieties”? “Throughout history”? Hmm.. 😊
Read The New York Times essay at : https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/magazine/indian-matchmaking-season-3-netflix.html