She is the creator of the hit Netflix series that offers an inside look at the work of Sima Taparia, a Mumbai-based matchmaker who travels the world helping her client find her “life partners.”
After the series’ recent debut, social media was filled with complaints about everything from the privileged lifestyles of some of the participants to the expressed desire of some to be paired with “fair” potential spouses.
Mundhra told CNN that the complaints are, in his opinion, completely valid.
“I totally understand why people feel like ‘you’re exposing, some of them are troublesome things that are in our culture,'” he said. “But that’s where we are. I would never want to do a program that sanitizes that because I think we need to have those conversations and we have to push to improve as a community and as a culture.”
Mundhra is well versed in the problems that arise.
She met Taparia years ago, when a Mundhra in her 20s hired Taparia to help her find a husband.
“Sima Auntie,” as she is known, later appeared in Mundhra’s 2017 documentary, “A Right Girl.” The film was co-directed by Sarita Khurana and explored the experiences of three Indian women looking for husbands.
Mundhra would later be nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Short Film category for her 2019 film, “St. Louis Superman.”
The “Sima Auntie” story was one that Mundhra wanted to expand and share.
The filmmaker said choosing the participants in “Indian Matchmaking” was challenging.
“It is difficult to convince people who are very private about a process and private about their lives to see it with cameras on a dating show,” he said. “But there were some people who were willing to adventure and were the ones who were most interested in working with us.”
“Through the smelting process, we seek the greatest diversity possible,” he added. “Geographically, ideologically, diasporically. We tried to really show, in whatever way made sense and was authentic to the world, as many different points of view as we could.”
That authenticity lends itself to many meme-worthy moments and “characters,” such as Aparna Shewakramani, a Houston-based attorney with highly selective criteria for a future husband (not a fan of men who are funny or don’t know that). Bolivia has salt flats).
Mundhra said that, like all participants, Shewakramani was encouraged to be herself.
She was “incredibly sincere and says some things that could be annoying to people incorrectly, but she owns and is very specific about what she wants,” Mundhra said of Shewakramani.
“She is kept at a very high level, so she keeps other people at a very high level, whether they are matchmakers or a potential life partner,” Mundhra continued. “Like all of us, she is a work in progress. I think she is learning more about herself through this process, just as I like it, we all do it, when we are going out and browsing, trying to figure out how much of we commit ourselves. “
Such a representation is very important to Mundhra, who noted that there was not much on the screen that reflected his life as a South Asian person who grew up in the 90s.
That is why he took his work on “Indian Matchmaking” so seriously, even when he acknowledges that the series is “a very narrow part” of South Asian life.
She theorizes that this is also one of the reasons why the show has become a ray of criticism, because people are so hungry for such representation.
“There are very few [shows] that represents the South Asia experience, so I think we are looking to make each of them represent a large part of the South Asia experience, when in reality we are one and a half billion people worldwide, “Mundhra said . ” It is an extremely diverse culture and there is no one way to fully tell the story of South Asians and their relationship to anything, be it the religion of marriage or family. “
Now 40 and married to a man she met in college (not a coincidence made by Taparia), Mundhra said she is adjusting to the attention her successful Netflix series drew and is hoping there will be a season 2. .
She is also grateful, she said, for conversations around her program that could help bring about change.
“Even for me as a creator and producer, I need to push and be pressured to do better,” she said. “Fortunately, the program kicked a wasp nest and got people thinking about themselves, speaking within their own families and on social media. I think that will open the door to more kinds of varied experiences and even more responsibility.”
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