Netflix show Indian Matchmaking is back. Season 1 saw no lasting matches – are any of season 2’s couples still together?
- The first season of the Indian dating show led by matchmaker Sima Taparia was a big success among the Indian diaspora and around the world
- Season 2 is now streaming, and we check on three of the ‘clients’ to see if they are still with their matches
When Indian Matchmaking premiered on Netflix two years ago, it quickly became a pandemic binge-watching sensation. The unscripted series followed Sima Taparia, a high-end matchmaker from Mumbai, as she helped clients in India and the United States find love.
Created by Smriti Mundhra, who previously made A Suitable Girl, a documentary about arranged marriage, Indian Matchmaking resonated with viewers not only in India and among the South Asian diaspora, but well beyond.
Even those unfamiliar with the specifics of Desi culture could understand the struggle to find meaningful connection in a swipe-left world and the pressure from friends and family to settle down.
“It was a reminder for the industry at large that there is so much universality in this specific,” says Mundhra, who was once told her idea for a show about Indian matchmaking was “too niche” for mainstream TV. “Audiences can see themselves in a character who doesn’t look like them, and that’s a really powerful message for all of us.”
The series also sparked conversations about colourism, the caste system, religious discrimination and body image in contemporary Indian society, as well as criticism that it glossed over the darker side of arranged marriage.
Mundhra says she was “encouraged” by the range of reactions to the show – even the critiques. “The intention of the show was not to sanitise the community. As Indians, and Indians in the diaspora, we have gone through dramatic change in one generation … These are the conversations we need to be having.”