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Let’s Discuss Caste and Colorism in ‘Indian Matchmaking’
No one wants to talk about it, but it’s all there
My roommates in Rome, co-workers in Washington, D.C., and friends in New Delhi all have something to say about Netflix’s new reality series, which pulls back the curtain on a facet of arranged marriages in India and the South Asian diaspora, matchmaking. For the few who have managed to miss the show’s viral popularity, matchmaker “Sima Taparia from Mumbai” works to connect her clients across the world with suitable candidates for marriage. The key word here is suitable, which in the world of Indian Matchmaking means upper caste, light-skinned, Hindu, nondisabled, straight, thin, tall, educated, and employed.
The research on arranged marriage’s popularity over time is largely inconclusive, but as Taparia explains when stating, “there’s marriage and then there’s love marriage,” formal and informal matchmaking is still a common practice in South Asia and the diaspora. Though the show is hardly representative of every South Asian’s path to marriage (for one, Taparia’s services cost $2,000 to $5,400, far out of reach for most families), the types of discriminatory and exclusionary practices central to arranged marriages and matchmaking depicted in the show are as widespread as they seem.
