Courtesy of Patina Photography.
The second season of “Indian Matchmaking” demonstrates that reality television often depicts situations and people in false, harmful ways that do not align with the experiences of people on the show.
By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23
Opinion Editor
On August 10, 2022, Netflix reality show “Indian Matchmaking” returned for a second season, drawing audiences back into its trap of arranged marriage matchmaking fiascos. The first episode of the season — titled “I’ve Dated Lots of Chicks” — opens to host and professional matchmaker Sima Taparia happily attending the marriage of two of her clients. Against the backdrop of her successful project, Taparia expressed her joy in being a matchmaker, “First is marriage, then love. That is the beauty of these arranged marriages.” The season subsequently picks up for eight episodes of Taparia’s matchmaking trial and errors.
“Indian Matchmaking” brings a strong potential to the screen in explaining what Indian marriages look like. In an article for The Juggernaut, Ishani Nath explores how “Indian Matchmaking” is more than just a “dating show” as it is “introducing and shaping how a global audience understands the matchmaking industry.” In fashioning itself as a reality show intimately following the lives of an Indian host and her Indian clients, it offers what viewers may assume is an authentic representation of the Indian experience in the arranged marriage landscape.
Unfortunately, both seasons disappoint. The second season shows no growth from the first and continues following the same apparently stubborn, upper middle-class clientele. Moreover, while carefully avoiding the controversial blunders of colorism from its first season, season two of “Indian Matchmaking” still resorts to dangerous stereotypes — one of the largest being sexism. As Nath aptly captures, the show begins to read as more of an “arranged marriage PR rather than a series based on reality.” The public relations scheme of the show bolsters single-sided narratives that subtly construct regressive ideas on arranged marriages wherein the Indian woman invariably gets left on the outside when not conforming to expected gender roles.
The show’s double standard is apparent in the season’s differential treatment of returning female and male clients from season one — Aparna Shewakramani, Nadia Jagessar, Shekar Jayaraman and Pradhyuman Maloo.
“The public relations scheme of the show bolsters single-sided narratives that subtly construct regressive ideas on arranged marriages wherein the Indian woman invariably gets left on the outside when not conforming to expected gender roles.”
Aparna Shewakramani, a Houston-based lawyer in her mid thirties and a client of Taparia’s, garnered significant negative attention in her first season. Taparia sets her up as a character with impossible dating criteria and an intolerable personality, resulting in failed talking stages that never move any further.
After the first season, Shewakramani received immense online hate and death threats. As a response to her inaccurate portrayal on the series and its consequential cyberbullying, she wrote a book titled “She’s Unlikeable: And Other Lies that Bring Women Down.” Shewakramani discusses not just her challenging experience with Taparia but the role of “Indian Matchmaking” in presenting her in a one-dimensional light. In an interview with The Indian Express, she reminded audiences that reality shows are still fictionalized versions of reality: “It is my hope that people move forward in consuming media more responsibly. We should, of course, enjoy it for entertainment purposes but we should by no means take it as absolute truth.”
“Indian Matchmaking” negatively portrays confident, self-sufficient women as “unlikeable,” thereby concentrating only on these aspects of Shewakramani’s character. Season two shows how this problem is not only encouraged by Sima Taparia and her often outdated modes of thought, but also by the creators of the show. In season two, Shewakramani is no longer Taparia’s client but works as her own matchmaker. However, the construction of Shewakramani, while including more of her personal successes and journey as an individual, does not completely abandon its assertion of her unlikeability. Episode one of season two — “I’ve Dated Lots of Chicks” — opens to a changed Shewakramani. She reiterates the life formula she had created for herself, the essence of her season one quest — getting married, having children, maintaining her professional life and moving into a “McMansion.” She then asserts, “I’m done with the life I thought I wanted.”
Situated in her New York City apartment, Shewakramani seems positioned for better things in her life and for the show. However, “Indian Matchmaking” does not follow through on portraying this stability. Instead, from this moment on, season two fails to sufficiently chart Shewakramani’s relationships, with similar unsuccessful dates to season one and a sudden disappearance midseason. As contributor Meha Razdan wrote for Buzzfeed News, “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Aparna’s storyline, per se, but without the tether of Sima, the viewer is left scratching their head wondering what this has to do with the matchmaking aspect.”
“While sexism is a common reality in matchmaking, the show’s orientation does not tackle the dangers of this discrimination, but rather reinforces that any woman thinking outside of convention is set to lose when it comes to love, and is deserving of blame.”
It seems that Shewakramani is brought on the show merely to tap into the fame surrounding her book release. This becomes increasingly believable as none of Shewakramani’s fellow female stars on Indian Matchmaking are seen in a progressive light and are still portrayed as unlikeable when they break certain gender norms.
Nadia Jagessar is one such person. Throughout season two, Jagessar is made out to be unlikeable for supposedly breaking the heart of Shekar Jayaraman — another season one client — in pursuit of a younger man named Vishal Kalyanasundaram.
At the end of season one, there seems to be a possibility, though not fully defined, of a romance between Jagesar and Jayaraman, one of Taparia’s other clients. When we return for season two, both Jagessar and Jayaraman are seemingly single and have the will-they or will-they-not date question lingering over their interactions. Jayaraman visitsJagessar’s house in episode one, cordially and warmly interacting with her whole family. He is immediately set up as a likable young suitor for Jagessar. However, the situation between the two is still in a gray area, with uncertainties looming from both sides. When Jagessar hosts a party for Taparia’s clients later in the same episode, she hits it off with the twenty-something Kalyanasundaram. Jagessar is immediately villainized for her behavior toward Jayaraman and belittled for her romance with a younger man.
In an article for Indian Express, Nadia Jagessar explains how she never dated Jayaraman in the two and a half years she knew him and was hurt by how the show edited her story arc in the second season. The article discusses how Jagessar “noted that it is ‘unfortunate’ that the show edited it to look like she had broken Shekar's heart.” In looking for her own love interest and pursuing someone conventionally inappropriate, Jagessar is made unlikeable. She quickly disappears from the show after her fling with Kalyanasundaram comes to an end. The show erases Jagessar’s reality to replace it with a fictionalized account that reinforces the show’s idea that progressive women cannot function in the arranged marriage arena. Taparia’s failure as a matchmaker slowly nods in this direction as well, blaming women for the shortcomings of matchmaking in the modern age, rather than lauding them for breaking past convention, if anything. Jagessar and Shewakramani are molded into selfish creatures demanding the hate of audiences.
The returning men of the show are inversely coddled. Jayaraman is depicted as the heartbroken man begging audiences for their sympathy. He still very much receives the show’s favor. Similarly, returning client Pradhyuman Maloo is glorified as a success story in the season. Like Shewakramani, he no longer is a client of Taparia’s and has found a wife on his own, at a party. Maloo was as stubborn — if not more — than his female counterparts during the first season. And yet, we are asked to forget all about it in the second season. He is instead given the Indian wedding everyone has been waiting for and does not disappear midseason without a grand send-off. He is even invited back to the show’s coveted married couple confessional couch with his wife for tips on his success story.
Reality shows, while based on the lives of real people, cannot be conflated with reality. The genre still alters and even fictionalizes narratives to suit the requirements of their shows. “Indian Matchmaking” is a clear example of this, altering the lives of its participants to suit certain narrative tropes that insist on an stereotypical arranged marriage system that cannot accept self-sufficient women. While sexism is a common reality in matchmaking, the show’s orientation does not tackle the dangers of this discrimination, but rather reinforces that any woman thinking outside of convention is set to lose when it comes to love, and is deserving of blame.