Every now and again, something comes along which seems perfect for the line – love it or hate it, but you cannot ignore it. For many, the Netflix original show Indian Matchmaking was just that. The show, which follows Sima Taparia, a top matchmaker from Mumbai as she attempts to find matches for eight consenting adults, has been the talk of the town, inspiring views that range from amusement to outrage.
For those who watched, the show left us with a lot of burning questions. Like, did Aparna finally date Jay? Are Nadia and Shekhar, and Vyasar and Rashi still going strong? And of course, did Akshay really find the one in Radhika and bring down his mother Preeti’s blood pressure?! Thankfully, Netflix dropped a reunion episode on YouTube – something it has been doing with other original dating reality shows like Love is Blind and Too Hot To Handle as well – which saw most of the people Sima worked for in the show come back and give us some of the answers we need.
Dolly Singh, who is known for her sketches and comedy videos, interviewed Aparna, Vyasar, Akshay, Nadia, Guru, Vinay, Pradhyuman and Ankita for the reunion.
Aparna opened the reunion, talking about how she had received several emails and direct messages from women who were in relationships they wanted to leave or had received proposals they were uncomfortable with, and had found Aparna’s straightforwardness inspiring. She also cleared up the air around her ‘dislike’ for comedy which was shown on the show, once and for all.
Aparna took on Sima's suggestion that she was "negative" and unwilling to compromise for saying no to the matches that Sima brought, contrasting it with how the matchmaker was more accepting of Pradhyuman who had apparently rejected the biodata of 150 women. Talking about Vinay not showing up for his dates with Nadia, Aparna says, “So someone can just not show up to see other people and they are just “unsure”, but the minute I am sure about something, I am stubborn? It was weird to see on camera.”
Next, we see Akshay who spends a good part of the interview defending his mother and what he really meant when he said that he wanted a wife who was like his mom. Also, it turns out that he and Radhika (after the two and a half conversations we saw between them on the show) did not ultimately work out, despite having a roka ceremony. And to those concerned – Akshay has assured everyone that his mother Preeti’s blood pressure is completely normal now.
Then comes Nadia – and surprise, surprise! – as do Vinay AND Guru, two of the three dates we saw Nadia have in the show. Vinay stood up Nadia twice which left her and the viewers with a sour taste, and the reunion attempts to show Vinay’s side of the story as well.
Another attraction to watch the reunion is… Pradhyuman explaining attraction. Watch out for analogies with mobile phones and conversations about the fancy foxnuts with liquid nitrogen that he served to Sima in the show. Pradhyuman also answers questions about his lifestyle – seen by many as over the top in the show – and how he’s just like the next regular guy, and also if he REALLY saw and rejected 150 prospective matches.
Vyasar is animated and lively as ever in his segment and does a rather entertaining imitation of what his DMs have been looking like since the show. He also addressed telling his dad’s story and why he chose to address it. “It’s not a secret. It’s a court case, it’s a matter of public record; anyone can go and look for it. So, either you choose to have control of your own story or you choose to have someone else have control of it.” And he also reveals why he and Rashi who had seemed to get along quite well on the show, eventually did not take their relationship forward.
The reunion ends with Ankita, one of the audience favourites, who talks about how much love and support she has received after the show. She also succinctly responds to the concept of matchmaking itself which has come under a lot of fire for being regressive and patriarchal, but continues to exist. “Matchmakers are a product of the environment. They are like that because people demand those atrocious things of them. I may not totally agree with the matchmaker’s thought process but I understand that that is their bread and butter. They have to work to fend for their families.”
“Yes, the show is extremely regressive but it’s also the reality of our society. We can either look at it negatively and ask why is Netflix airing or producing this, or we can say, hey, there’s a problem and now we can make that change happen,” Ankita adds.
While they seemed to have diverging views on many things in the aftermath of the show, one thing everyone in the reunion agreed on was how creative and entertaining the memes Indian Matchmaking has inspired are.
For more about which matches did, or did not work out, watch the reunion here.