Match point

Indian Matchmaking is back and is as compelling viewing as ever

 

What does one say about a TV show about matchmaking in which the only couple who do get married don’t meet through the matchmaker? Well, I guess the only thing one can say is that the new season of Indian Matchmaking (on Netflix) doesn’t really make a great case for matchmakers.

 

Don’t get me wrong. Sima Aunty – or Sima from Mumbai, as she persistently introduces herself – is a great character, full of vim and vigour and the occasional devastating put-down. When it comes to matchmaking, though, she doesn’t exactly have a stellar success rate, going by her clients who feature in this series (maybe, in all fairness, she has better luck off screen). But despite the fact that none of her matches seem to take, Sima Aunty sallies forth in every episode, confidence undented, folio of biodatas in hand, with unalloyed optimism in her heart. Bless!

 

It is her clients who worry me, though. There is an endless stream of strong, confident 30-somethings who have stellar careers, beautiful homes, loving families and supportive friends, who nonetheless feel that their lives are not complete unless they have a spouse in tow as well. And that’s just the men – the women are, if anything, even more desperate to ‘settle down’. And for some reason, all these sentient adults seem to believe that the answer to their dreams lies in the biodatas that Sima Aunty brings to every meeting. 

 

It's telling that it is the matchmaker herself who tries to lower their expectations. After asking them to list their criteria for a match, she shakes her head and says that nobody gets a 100 per cent match. They will have to compromise and adjust to find a match (or what her clients refer to as ‘settling’).

 

The lists of ‘criteria’ give us an insight into the minds of these clients – but not in the way they were hoping. They all claim to be open-minded but they all want to be matched with someone within their own community. The partner has to be Indian, sometimes even specifically from one particular state, and one client even asks that her match be fluent in her mother tongue (because otherwise he may not get the family jokes!). One guy – who strangely enough, remains unmatched until the end – wants a girl who is extroverted as well as introverted (no, me neither). And oh yes, she must know how to make pakoras like his mother. 

 

The list of demands ranges from the impossible to the improbable, with a specificity that is mind-boggling. So much so that by the end, you develop a sneaking sympathy for Sima Aunty who has to deal with everything from a desire for man buns and tattoos to rustling up a man who is into sky-diving. As she bleats sadly, only 60 per cent to 70 per cent is possible.

 

But never mind all these demanding clients. It is another character entirely that plays a starring role in the series. And it’s called Karma. (Look away now if you don’t want any spoilers.)

 

The first victim is Nadia. The show opens with her inviting her match, Shekar, home to meet her family. You would think that things were getting serious between them. But then she meets a younger man, Vishal, and before you can say ‘Nick Jonas’ she is snogging him on the dance floor in front of the mortified Shekar. To make matters worse, she drops him on a Facetime call, ending it by saying that she has to go because she and Vishal have ordered dinner – and Shekar walks off into the sunset in tears.

 

Cut to a few weeks later. Vishal flies in to have dinner with Nadia, and announces that he doesn’t feel ‘that spark’ with her and that it’s over. It is now Nadia’s turn to dissolve into tears.

 

And then, there is Vinesh, who turns down Mausam because she is not hot enough for him, only to be turned down by his next match. The pneumatic nurse, Meena, purses her filler lips to dismiss him as one of the frogs she has to (metaphorically) kiss before she finds her Prince. 

 

As they don’t say, Karma is a dish best served by a hot girl!

 

And quiet flows the Ganga...

The chaotic but holy ghats of Haridwar play host to both life and death…

If you want to observe a slice of life in all its joys and sorrows, its hopes and triumphs, its pride and pathos, you really can’t do better than visit the ghats of Haridwar.

Those who visit, do so for a number of reasons. There are the goggle-eyed foreign tourists out for a taste of exotic India, with its chaotic public spaces, its long-haired sadhus, its colourful mandirs, the dilapidated dhabas, and the endless opportunities for that fabulous Instagram shot. There are the devout Indian visitors who have come for a holy dip and perhaps a front-row seat at the evening aarti, when gleaming diyas in leafy containers float across the Ganga carrying with them the prayers of all those present. There are groups of youngsters who are just out for a good time, for whom Har Ki Pauri is nothing more than an improvised swimming pool, or the backdrop for that perfect selfie for Facebook.

And then there are those who are here for a specific religious purpose.

There are the happy families who have brought their infants for their mundan ceremony. The babies look all cute and cuddly – if a tad bewildered; and sometimes a bit weepy – with their heads shorn bare and a swastika in bright-red vermillion drawn on them. The proud moms and dads, and a plethora of relatives (this is India after all, where it is all about loving your family), fuss around them, kissing their bald pates and chubby cheeks, as if to make up for the loss of their hair, force-feeding them laddoos and halwa, the prasad from the nearby temple.

And then there are those who are here to mark the end of a life rather than celebrate the beginning of one. You can tell them apart by that sack of ashes they are carrying across the bridge, straining under its weight and the knowledge that this is the last duty they will ever be able to perform for a loved one. You can recognize them by their quiet desperation as they wander the narrow lanes to try and run down the family priest, even as mendicants pester them with endless requests for alms. You can see them take a ritual dip in the holy Ganga after immersing the remains of their loved ones, right next to those celebrating a mundan ceremony for their infants.

If you ask me, it is in that single image that the beauty of Hinduism resides. This is a religion that treats birth and death as part of the same karmic cycle, celebrating both ritually in the same space. The joy that emanates from the mundan of a young one about to embark on the journey of life exists side by side with the melancholy satisfaction that resonates with the departure of a dear one, who has finally, we hope and pray, broken free of the endless rounds of birth and death and attained a higher state, becoming one with the divine.

After all, when it comes right down to it, no matter which religion you believe in or practice, birth and death are inextricably linked. Each birth carries with it intimations of mortality, with every day lived taking us nearer the inevitable end. But if you believe in reincarnation, one of the central concepts of Hinduism, every death carries in itself the seed of another birth, and the possibility of doing better this time round on the karmic scales – a karmic do-over, if you will.

And so, the wheel of life turns on and on, with its endless rounds of births, deaths, rebirths, deaths, and then, with a bit of luck and lots of good karma, the attainment of moksha.

Moksha: quite literally, liberation or release. A deliverance from the cycle of birth and death as the soul (atma) becomes part of divinity (Paramatma). When a soul has finally tallied its debit and credit ledger and arrived at a zero sum that will free it from the dreary dross of earthly matters.

It was perhaps this principle of karmic deliverance – or Mukti, as it is called in our scriptures – that our social order was founded on so many millennia ago. Do good deeds in this life and you will be rewarded in the next one. Do bad deeds this time around and you will pay for it in your next life.

Even from a purely pragmatic, agnostic point of view, there aren’t many better ways of keeping people on the straight and narrow. Flout the rules of dharma and you will be punished by being born a beggar (or maybe even a monkey or a cat). Follow the rules of dharma, and you will be reborn a king (or even a Brahmin, which was the highest level of achievement in those days).

Of course, we all know it’s not quite so simple. But sometimes it is comforting to believe that those who perished having lived an honest, simple, devout life, will get their reward in this world or the next. And that immersing their remains in the holy river will give them a head-start on that journey.