Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking introduced the concept of arranged marriages to the world. Alongside, it also gave reality TV a new icon – Mumbai’s top matchmaker, Sima Taparia. Taparia manned the dating show as she found potential matches for her eligible clients, served with a dash of sass. The Indian Matchmaking star has now revealed how she too, met her husband Anup via traditional matchmaking.
On Indian Matchmaking, Taparia comes across as someone who’s opinionated and at times, regressive with her approach. But being excellent in her craft of matchmaking, she’s sought after for her skills by the creme de la crème of India. Taparia, who charges a hefty number when it comes to fees, often exclaimed how the participants on the reality show were not “flexible” or “compromising" enough. But, it was an entirely different scenario for the matchmaker herself when she tied the knot with Anup Taparia 37 years ago. At the age of 19 and a half, which at that time, “was the right age to get married,” the Indian Matchmaking celeb was found a suitable boy. On the Netflix show, Taparia speaks about her father’s sister seeing Anup at a wedding in Mumbai. “She told my father, and then we had a meeting for half an hour,” added Taparia. The boy’s side of the family said yes in three days and that’s when the girl from Gulbarga became “Sima from Mumbai.” The Indian Matchmaking lead, who’s now an Instagram verified celebrity herself, has spilled the tea on what arranged marriage was like for her and Mr. Taparia in 1983.
Indian Matchmaking made Taparia into an overnight superstar. The memes didn’t stop for weeks, and the matchmaker claimed to have received thousands of calls in the first few days after the Netflix premiere. Today, Taparia has a 24,000 follower base on Instagram to whom she spoke about her own matchmaking process. “It was December of '82 when we got engaged," recalled Taparia. She revealed how back then, Anup was still in his final year of graduation and she was residing with her family in Gulbarga, now known as Kalaburagi in the Indian state of Karnataka. “Our families arranged for the match via a familial acquaintance and we met only once before saying yes to each other,” she elaborated her earlier story from Indian Matchmaking. “It was only after the engagement that we began to have proper conversations on telephones,” added Taparia about her old-school love. Taparia remembered how Indians had to dial 180 for an outstation call in the ’80s. “The operator would connect the line after few hours only,” added the Indian Matchmaking star. “We'd often stay around our telephones sneaking from our family's forever teasing eyes, waiting for the call,” Taparia gushed.
“However, in January 1983, our romance on telephonic calls was cut short owing to the huge fire in Malabar Telephone Exchange (Anup’s local telecommunications system office),” remembered the Mumbai-based matchmaker. “PCOs (payphones) would take hours of waiting to get on a call. And the telephone at Anup's house was going to be dead for months until the line was fixed,” spoke Taparia. That’s when the Suitable Rishta owner and her husband came up with a solution – letters! Even though it took three days for a letter to be delivered back and forth, and sometimes got intercepted by a nosy family member, Taparia continued her snail-mail relationship. Soon, Anup who wanted to meet his future wife came to meet Taparia at her relatives’ place in Pune under the pretext of a college picnic. “I was ecstatic. We sat over in one of those premium hotels by the station, had breakfast, and spent quality time together,” she mused.
The Indian Matchmaking expert continued the letter exchange until she got married to Anup in the summer of May 1983. “It has been 37 years since then but he still makes me feel as if we have just started all over again," said the matchmaker who has two daughters, Ritu Taparia Bagree– the star of A Suitable Girl, and Mridu Taparia. With her throwback story, Taparia has explained how communication is key in any relationship even though, distance makes a heart grow fonder. Her matches on Indian Matchmaking might have had a zero success rate, but in real life, Taparia’s retro romance is a story worth telling!
All episodes of Indian Matchmaking are now available to stream on Netflix.
Source: Sima Taparia