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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.