Wedding Season Review: Indian matchmaking, made in the USA

The subcontinent’s largest import to the West — other than the brain drain — is perhaps the big fat wedding. Not just the event, or the series of events leading up to it, but the entire gamut of conversations, mindsets, setups, all of which can be categorised under the umbrella of matchmaking. No amount of time spent in a “different” culture has managed to rob the flavour of desi matchmaking, and it’s a torch that seems to get handed down from generation to generation — never mind that most of these (in this case) Americans of Indian, or South Asian, origin have been born and raised in the US.

The movie follows the path of Asha (Pallavi Sharda), who, much to the chagrin of her mother, has chucked up her high-paying Wall Street job to take up a (lower-paying) position with an NGO in New Jersey because she hopes to change lives. It comes in the wake of a breakup, and this is Asha’s way of moving ahead. But her parents — alongside the rest of the intrusive-yet-well-intentioned community — are keen that the 28-year-old start looking for a suitable groom now that even her younger sister Priya (Arianna Afsar) is about to get hitched to an American (Sean Kleier).

There are various attempts to get Asha “into the marriage market”, including her mother posting an online profile of hers describing her in words that would catch the fancy of a ‘traditional’ Indian man: “simple”, “good cook”, “with family values” etc. Asha is also told that she should be checking out prospective hubbies at the many (19, she calculates, including her sister’s) weddings the family has been invited to — now that it’s “wedding season”. Obviously, she’s flustered since she’d rather concentrate on an upcoming — and very critical — presentation coming up in a few weeks.

sushmita@khaleejtimes.com