That marriage plays a central role in Indian society is well known. But the romanticized elaborate weddings and the reports of inhumane child marriages—how Indian marriages are often depicted to the Western world—are extremes that shed little light on the real picture, according to filmmakers Sarita Khurana and Smriti Mundhra.
Today women in India have more options than ever before, and in “A Suitable Girl” the documentary filmmakers wanted to explore what marriage meant to a modern woman: how work, education, family, and love were balanced in the face of the rite of passage known as marriage.
The vérité-style documentary, which spans four years, captures everything from the many styles of modern matchmaking to the whirlwind of emotions that accompanies a wedding to the quiet moments at home before and after marriage.
Finding the Girls
The idea for the film grew from personal experiences; Khurana and Mundhra, both of Indian descent and having grown up in the States, met in graduate school and bonded over similar pressures from their families to get married.
“One thing led to another and we thought this would be a great way to explore some of these issues and look at how women in India are negotiating the same pressures in their lives,” Khurana said.
Khurana and Mundhra began their search in big metropolitan areas like Mumbai and Dehli. This led them to Seema, a matchmaker who frets over finding a good match for her reluctant daughter Ritu, who had just returned from studying economics abroad.
