Meet Aparna Shewakramani The Person

Aparna Shewakramani of the Indian Matchmaking fame bares it all - the good, the bad, and the it-depends-on-how-you-look-at it in her book titled She's Unlikeable: And Other Lies That Bring Women Down

I’m also growing increasingly  unhappy  with my work—not  just the toxic office I work  in but the profession  as a whole.  Each  job, and I held  five over  the course  of ten years, was  more  miserable than the next. Politics abounded, management was often sexist and/or  racist,  and  the  billable  hour  ran  my  life. I had  to  find  a way out. And  for me, it wasn’t  going  to be a husband  and a baby. Although  I did want  that for myself,  the men  I was  meeting  just didn’t gel with what I wanted  in my future life partner. They were nice,  fine,  OK.  But  they  weren’t  for  me.  I  worried  out  loud  to my  closest  friends.  Time  was  ticking  and  I was  moving  into  my mid-thirties. Thirty-three was not a good number, we decided, and neither was thirty-four.  All of us decided  that my participation  in the “Netflix show” made sense. After all, wouldn’t it be the sweetest meet-cute  if I found my future partner on a TV show? It would explain  why  it took me so long to find someone  to begin with. It would  be the why we were  all looking  for.

I started  taping  the  show  when  I was  thirty-four.  We  taped on  and  off from  April  2019  to  December 2019.  My  birthday  in January  2020  made  me thirty-five,  and, as we  all well know,  still single. I am optimistic  at the outset of the show.  Here  is a chance for me  to work  with  a matchmaker,  aka a pro  and  an expert  in finding the ideal partner for someone,  ready to help me find love. I resolve to openly express what I want in a future partner, as well as the inexorable  conviction that I deserve  such  a partner.  I am not just unapologetic  to Sima onscreen—I  am unapologetic  in life. I have  watched  my  friends  who  are my  peers  and beloved  to me all find wonderful  and stable partners for themselves.  I know luck hasn’t  been  on  my  side,  but  I believe  that is all changing,  albeit a little later in life than  anticipated.  I feel I deserve  someone  as equally  lovely  as  my  friends’  husbands,  and  I am  certain  I will find that person  on this docuseries.

She's Unlikeable: And Other Lies That Bring Women Down by Aparna Shewakramani

I quickly  learn  that’s  not  true,  as you  already  know  too.  But I  can’t  help  but  still wonder  about  the  true  meaning  (and  pur- pose) of society’s insistence that women be “flexible” and “com- promising.”   Is  it a  tactic  to  keep  us  submissive?   Is  it an  “easy” way to preserve the traditional societal family structure that has existed for hundreds of years? Is it complacency? An understand- ing that men do not feel the need to be flexible or compromise, because  of their deep-rooted generational  entitlement  surround- ing  arranged  marriages  in  South  Asian  culture?  What  is it that made  this  woman,  Sima,  insist  that  I was  the  one  who  had  to do the work  of compromising? That it was my mother  who  bore the responsibility of forcing me to comply with this structure of power?  Why  did she, from  her small  town  of Gulbarga  with  her own  arranged  marriage  at the age of nineteen  or twenty,  believe that it was only supposed  to be this way—even now, thirty to forty years later? I met her husband  and one of her daughters, as well as her assistant. They accompanied her to Houston  when  she came for that initial meeting  with my family and me. Her husband  was mild-mannered, very enthusiastic about showing me their pictures from their travels to Whistler  the week  prior, and appeared  to be more  than  happy  to  play  her  sidekick  on  this  adventure  in  TV world. So that led me to think she believes  she deserves  a spouse who  supports  her and  treats her like a priority  in their relation- ship. But she doesn’t  believe  I deserve  that? Interesting  (or not).

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To  me it was  also quite telling of her privilege,  of being  from a  wealthy  family  that  married  her  off  in  a  favorable  situation, as  well  as  her  general  ineptitude  in  modern-day matchmaking. You see, Sima might be an OK matchmaker in her own Marwari community  in  Mumbai,  one  that  subscribes   to  her  traditional views surrounding  caste, color, height, and power. But in the larger context of the world, the one outside her bubble, she is vastly ill- equipped  to deal with modern-day matchmaking. Let me outline a few of my  beliefs—and  you  can  disagree  with me, of course.

Excerpted with permission from She's Unlikeable: And Other Lies That Bring Women Down by Aparna Shewakramani.

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