Each year, India witnesses approximately 10 million weddings nationwide and historically, almost half of these marriages are arranged. In 2024, a study by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) projected an astounding 5.9 trillion rupees in business, fuelled by an estimated 4.8 million weddings across the country, during the November 2024 to February 2025 wedding season in India. For many Indians, especially Indian women, the wedding is still celebrated as their life's most important milestone.
In Gorkey Patwal's 'Aapko Kya Lagta Hai?' — a short film made for Harkat Studios' 1-minute 16mm film competition — the photographer-filmmaker peels back the layers of this celebration to expose the emotional fatigue and gendered scrutiny endured by women in the arranged marriage process. The film delivers a subtle but searing critique of how women are often reduced to objects of inspection: seen but not heard, present but not considered.
In just over 1 minute, the film tells the story of a young woman who is constantly being asked the impertinent question: "When are you getting married?" Caught in the cyclical grind of the matchmaking process and meeting countless men and their families, she is expected to present her best self repeatedly; to be well-dressed, polite, agreeable, and emotionally available... but not too much. Each meeting with a strange man and his family feels less like a chance at companionship and more like a performance with pre-written cues and unspoken rules of engagement. In this way, she becomes a stand-in for countless others across India who are asked to "meet a boy" over and over again.
The central irony of the film lies in its title: 'Aapko Kya Lagta Hai?' (what do you think?) — a phrase tossed around casually in Indian conversations, especially when discussing marriage prospects. But here, it becomes a mirror image of indifference: everyone wants to know her choice, but no one truly listens. Her feelings, hesitations, or confusion are never acknowledged. It's a question that is asked but never answered — not because she's unwilling, but because no one waits to hear her answer.
In true Gorkey Patwal tradition, what sets the film apart is its restraint. There are no dramatic outbursts or heavy-handed monologues. Instead, Patwal relies on repetition, rhythm, and quiet moments to convey a building sense of entrapment. We see the protagonist cycle through the same rituals — tea, snacks, small talk, and awkward silences — until it begins to invade her subconscious. She dreams of these meetings — her mind a revolving door of faces, questions, and choices.
Aapko Kya Lagta Hai? forces the viewers to look at what is often left unsaid in the matchmaking process. Behind the ornate lehengas and curated matrimonial profiles lies a less glamorous reality: women enduring months, or even years, of unacknowledged emotional labour to meet a patriarchal societal expectation. It encourages viewers to rethink the rituals we take for granted and to finally direct that central question — "What do you think?" — not just at the process, but at the woman caught inside it.
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