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Sima Aunty’s failure rate on Indian Matchmaking remains as high as ever

I don’t know about you but I sometimes feel that Indian Matchmaking should be retitled Indian MatchNotMaking. Given the near-total failure rate of Sima Aunty (or Sima from Mumbai as she invariably - and cringemakingly - introduces herself) in actually arranging matches for her clients, that would be a more accurate descriptor. 

If you ask me, Sima Taparia is lucky that she is self-employed. If she had been working for a professional organisation her lack-of-success rate would have led to her being fired two seasons ago. 

It’s not just that Sima Aunty fails to deliver for most of her clients. It’s that it appears as if she is not actually listening to them when they tell her what they are looking for in a prospective spouse. It’s either that or she purposefully (almost spitefully) refuses to give them even the bare minimum of what they ask for — and I genuinely don’t know which one is worse. Instead she asks them (in increasingly imperious tones) to ‘adjust’ - to lower their expectations, to compromise on their wish lists no matter how modest, to settle because nobody can get ‘100 percent, only 60, 70 is possible’.

So when a divorcee called Priya says that hair is very important for her and that she likes a man bun, Sima Aunty produces a - wait for this - bald man for her delectation. Though it is hard to feel sorry for Priya because when the requisite man bun is conjured up for her she goes off him because he is a bit too quick to say that he likes her. 

Frankly, just as Sima Aunty doesn’t seem that keen on finding the ideal matches from her pile of bio-datas, her clients don’t seem to be that invested in finding their perfect match either. There is ER doctor Vikash who turns down one girl because she can’t speak Hindi; and then rejects the next one because while she does speak Hindi, she also has an Indian accent. In that moment it is easy to understand why this man on the cusp of 40 is still single. 

It is telling that in this season, the one match that looks like it might end in marriage is one that Sima Aunty has not arranged. Arti, who starts off by wanting to marry a Sindhi (like her late father wanted), confesses to a lack of attraction to the candidate Sima Aunty has unearthed and decides to venture on to a dating app to explore her options instead. And a few months later, there she is, getting engaged to a Pakistani Muslim guy (so much for marrying ‘within the community’!) who seems head over heels in love with her. And all Sima Aunty can do is grit her teeth and wish them well over Zoom. 

So, what am I missing here? Given that Sima Aunty hasn’t managed to get a single couple married over 3 seasons, why do singles keep signing up for this show? Are they so desperate that they are willing to try anything? Is this a triumph of hope over experience? Or are these savvy young people just clout chasing with appearances on a Netflix show?

The jury may be out on that one. But I know which way I would vote if I were on it.