US TV host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel sought to understand the concept of arranged marriages in the ‘Behind the Scenes’ segment on one of his episodes recently.
During the commercial breaks on his hit show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host usually interacts with some members of the studio audience. In one such recent interaction, Jimmy spoke to an Indian couple, currently living in Chicago, who had an arranged marriage.
Jimmy begins by quizzing the man, who is an IT analyst, about his profession. Soon, he gets to know that the man’s wife, sitting next to him, is also in the same profession. Jimmy asks them if they fell in “some sort of IT love”.
And that is when the couple reveal that they had an arranged marriage and what unfolds is a conversation that is hilarious and awkward in equal measure.
A baffled Jimmy asks the couple if arranged marriages are a common thing in India and wants to know how exactly they work.
“What happens if you don’t like who they pick?” he asks, adding he would like to give an example, “Here at ABC we try arranged marriages. They are called The Bachelor and it almost never works out. And we are not giving just one, but a person a choice between 28 people (sic).”
The Indian couple, who say they have been married for three years, said that their relationship was working fine.
“When you saw each other was it like ‘Oh, great!’?” Jimmy asks. To which the woman replies, “No, not initially,” eliciting a lot of laughter from others in the audience.
The man then struggles to explain how exactly a match is arranged.
“So, you turn in a resume,” Jimmy exclaims when told how marriage bureaus work and how potential brides and grooms send in their “resumes” or “biodatas” and then meet each other for an “interview” before deciding whether to say yes or not.
Watch the full video here: