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Guest Column by Shunali Shroff: Aunty, please sit
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Sima Taparia and her celebrity
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Sima Taparia and her celebrity. Every other day I hear of her being feted at an event, with photos of perfectly smart women posing next to her.
Taparia shot to fame with Indian Matchmaking, as you must know already. The show was watched with some entertainment and a fair dose of irritation at the implicit patriarchy when it was first aired. I must confess I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch Season 2 fully, but it seems to have increased her fame. I am not alone in finding the show and her views regressive and the criticism that its second season has received is proof of that.
Why then are people fascinated with Taparia? I find it confounding that women idolise someone whose internalised misogyny is implicit in her judgement of girls who refuse to settle for less than their ideal of a perfect husband whereas the picky men who appear on her show are given a free pass. In one episode, Taparia deemed a woman participant looking for her soulmate ‘greedy’.
The actual problem
Now, I don’t mean to denigrate Sima. If she’s collecting a sizeable fanbase, the problem is with her followers and not her. She is, after all, the perfect representation of an Indian aunty, the kind we all hoped our mothers weren’t friends with growing up. Now, would we excitedly attend talks by such an ‘aunty’? Would we give her awards, pose for selfies with her joyfully and share them on social media?
Attention, please
And yet that’s exactly what seems to be happening.
Yes, she has practical advice to offer too, she reminds you that being flexible is important and one cannot get everything in a life partner, but is that something we’ve never heard before?
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that just as with a life partner, we ought to be choosy with what we give our attention to. Lavishing attention on someone who’s perpetuating old fashioned ideas of matrimony, judgement of women, and caste-based marriages is ensuring those institutions persist. Watch the show, sure, but lionise Taparia, maybe not.
Shunali Khullar Shroff is a Mumbai-based writer. Her last book was Love in the Time of Affluenza
I Say Chaps is a column that allows passionate, creative people a platform to have their say.
From HT Brunch, December 17, 2022
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