India in Love

by Ira Trivedi

Ever since I can remember, I have loved reading the matrimonial pull-out of the Sunday papers. This was a favourite activity of mine when I lived in India, and when I did not, it was one of the reasons I looked forward to coming back. What I found in these pages never failed to amuse, astound, and at times disturb me. Year by year, I have noticed the matrimonial sections getting leaner, and today most matrimonial sections of popular English newspapers are terribly lean—just two to four pages long—a considerable contraction from the previous twenty to fifty page deck, possibly because seekers of marriage are moving to new platforms like e-portals and marriage bureaus. However, the range of ads has widened. And, as people move past caste lines, new categories have emerged such as ‘Doctor’, ‘MBA’, ‘Second Marriage’, ‘Cosmopolitan’, and ‘No Dowry/ Spiritual’. Featured at the bottom of many ads, ‘Caste No Bar’ too appears more often, heralding a welcome change from the past.

  A typical matrimonial posting for a bride would ask that candidates be: fair, beautiful, god-fearing, homely, quiet, respectful, innocent, humble, and cultured. ‘Homeliness’ is omnipresent in matrimonial ads. As per the dictionary, the definition of homely is ‘lacking in physical attractiveness, not beautiful, unattractive’. Who wants a homely wife? On enquiry, I discovered that in the context of Indian matrimonial ads, ‘homely’ simply means that the girl should like to ‘stay at home’.

  Skin colour remains an important marker of physical attractiveness especially where women are concerned. Research has shown that in matrimonial ads, more women than men announced skin colour, and men indicated a preference for fair-skinned brides. I notice an advertisement in the Muslim Sunni column:

  Vitiligo/ Leucoderma Girl. Beautiful, V fair. 26/5’2”. Living in Gorakhpur.

  A person with leucoderma actually suffers a loss of pigmentation but this appears to be a plus in the Indian matrimonial market.

  Since we are in the middle of massive societal change, it is not uncommon to see confused ads with descriptions like ‘traditional girl with modern qualities’, ‘homely working girl’, ‘fair, educated beautiful, slim outgoing yet conservative’, or ‘MBA workaholic, teetotaller, 29, 5’9” well settled IT boy seeking fair homely but active girl’.

  As divorce rates skyrocket, there are an increasing number of divorce advertisements:

  GUPTA 39/5’7.5” LOOKS LIKE 35 ONLY. Divorced with 1 male child, well-settled business at Lucknow seeks soft-spoken fair I’less girl from decent family. Mail complete biodata with RECENT coloured photo.

  I’less here means ‘issueless’, and an issue is a child. Indian men may have several ‘issues’, but a woman with an ‘issue’ is a serious issue. An ad for a woman divorcee typically looks like this:

  KHATRI pnjbi sawhney girl 5’1”/30 fair own aerobic centre 2 day divorcee, no issue

  A ‘2 day divorcee’, ‘early marriage’ or ‘very short marriage’ are common in advertisements from women divorcees since divorce is still considered by many to be taboo.

  Sometimes in addition to the usual, caste, skin colour, weight, height traits one does notice some strange personal qualities advertised. For example, one centre page, large boxed ad goes like this:

  A Jat Sikh professional and business family well settled in London, England since 1960s seek a bride for their 30 year old Doctor son. He wears turban and uncut beard, which he ties very neatly. He is Non-vegetarian, 5’9”, tall, slim, athletic and fair.

  Their description for their well-endowed son is specific, as is the criteria for their daughter-in-law to be:

  We are looking for a Sikh girl who is a Medical Doctor with MBBS or MB or BDS or MDS between the age of 25 & 28 yrs slim, fair and pretty between 5’3” and 5’6”.

  A report that I recently read said that among those who responded to a series of advertisements seeking HIV-positive partners for HIV-positive men, eight prospective brides thought HIV-positive was an educational qualification.

  My all-time favourite ad is perhaps this one: ‘Family seeks homely, convent-educated girl for son. Caste no bar. But must be able to drive tractor. Photo of tractor appreciated.’

  While reading the matrimonial section made my Sunday morning more enjoyable, as I’ve noted, there is a strong move away from print ads to online matrimonial ads.

  When matrimonial websites were first launched in the early 2000s, they were thought of as the last, desperate effort to get married. Today, the 120 per cent growth rate for the US$1.4 billion (8,719 crore) online matrimony industry indicates that there has been a paradigm shift in market sentiment.189 There are more than 20 million users on over 150 matrimonial websites and an astonishing 48 per cent of internet users in India use matrimonial sites.190 As of 2009, Shaadi.com, a popular matrimonial website, claimed to have over 8,22,073 matches to their credit.191 E-portals are now expanding to tap into regional and vernacular markets by launching sites that are tailored specifically to the requirements of India’s various states and their regional needs. They are also beginning to harness the potential in television and mobile markets. Recently, Shaadi.com produced a television reality show that traced the journey of participants from finding a suitable match online to getting married and living as a nuclear family. Bharatmatrimony.com, a large online portal, has partnered with Idea Cellular to launch customized matrimony services to tap into the fast-growing mobile market.

  Matrimonial sites have also evolved to cater to niche markets with portals like Overweightshaadi.com for overweight people, Positiveshaadi.com for people who are HIV-positive and, with the skyrocketing divorce rates, Secondshaadi.com, a website catering only to divorcees.

  Matrimonial websites present certain advantages over traditional newspaper websites and this has led to the shift from newspaper to the internet for the urban, educated, middle-class population. The popularity of E-portals shows an interesting change in the role of the family in marriage as partner selection is gradually moving away from parents to the prospective brides and grooms as a trend of online courtship emerges.

  E-portals have also reflected the decreasing role of caste in marriage. For example, on Shaadi.com, users need to select their caste from a dropdown menu with more than 400 choices when creating a profile. But just below this, the portal has introduced a little box to ask if the person is open to inter-caste marriage. The company has found that many are choosing to tick this box.

  ‘The heads of some of India’s most successful matrimonial websites agree that there is a rising stated preference for partners outside the applicant’s own caste. “The majority of our users now state ‘caste no bar’ in their profiles. It would be around 60%, I think,” [says] Gourav Rakshit, Chief Operating Officer of Shaadi.com.’192

  Marriage portals though do come with their fair share of trouble. Many parents complain that online matrimonial sites are more ‘dating sites’ and young people use these websites to meet people though they aren’t interested in marriage. In a country where access to women is still difficult, matrimonial websites present a new universe of opportunity to men.

  Another problem is fake profiles. Matrimonial portals went under the scanner in 2007, after the arrest of Liaquat Ali Khan who advertised himself as a UK-based Indian engineer with two homes. Khan allegedly tricked many women from India into marriage. In their enthusiasm for a ‘groom from abroad’ these women did not check the veracity of his claims. He fleeced them of money, telling them that he needed it for wedding arrangements—passports, visas to the UK and the honeymoon. After forty-two engagements and eight marriages, Khan’s exploits were discovered when computer studies student Sangeetha Dineshan filed a police complaint. It was discovered that Khan was married, had a daughter, and lived in India, where he ran an internet café.

  It is not only customers who are realizing the risks of finding spouses online. The lack of transparency and insecurity in the e-matrimony market is leading to the revival of the age-old matchmaker. Even matrimonial sites have diversified into the offline world with brick and mortar structures or marriage bur
eaus. Recently Shaadi.com started Shaadi Centres or offline, brick and mortar matchmaking outlets. Today, almost every residential colony in every urban neighbourhood has its local marriage bureau. Here sit marriage brokers, professionals who realize that in India marriage is often as much of a business transaction as an affair of the heart. It is here that the marriage brokers conduct their business—the twenty-first-century version of the old style matchmakers.

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  Since its inception a decade ago, A to Z Matchmaking has arranged over a thousand marriages worldwide. I am enchanted by the efficiency of this organization, which is run like a boutique investment bank. Teams of young women in their early twenties are dedicated to different segments of society ranging from the middle class to the elite. An in-house astrology team pulls up birth charts on laptops, and a detective team, headed by a cranky retired colonel, performs background checks on listed clients. A to Z has an extensive menu of services and various matrimonial packages for different sections of society—middle class, upper-middle, elite and a super elite category. Registration in a higher bracket gives access to people with more wealth, and there is an option to upgrade for a fee at any point during the process of finding a spouse. The colourful brochure, filled with pictures of happy couples (including one non-Indian, blonde, blue-eyed couple) advertises a full range of services that include ‘showing’ the girl, relaying messages between the two families, supervising boy-girl meetings, negotiating wedding budgets, and being present at all wedding functions from the engagement to the wedding reception. These investment bankers of love specialize in organizing ‘live deals’—making marriages sound like something from the Goldman Sachs mergers and acquisitions department.

  ‘This is a very good business,’ Gopalji tells me. ‘There is never a down cycle. Whether the economy is good or bad, people are always getting married. If you think about it, it is probably the most stable business in the world.’

  According to eminent psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar, who has studied the Indian psyche for decades, especially in the realm of relationships, ‘Perhaps the greatest attraction of an arranged marriage is that it takes away the young person’s anxiety around finding a mate. Whether you are plain or good-looking, fat or thin, you can be reasonably sure that a suitable mate will be found for you.’193 What Kakar says is true. In India, everyone is matched, from the mentally impaired to the physically handicapped. Marriage is something that must be done and is regarded as the first step into adulthood.

  Apparently the marriage brokerage business has flourished in the past ten years, mostly because of Indian parents’ perennial anxiety around the marriage of their children. Traditionally, family members used to bring rishtas (matches) and guide parents but now people are worried that if the boy or the girl turns out to be ‘defective’, implying badly behaved, impotent, or with ‘bad habits’ like alcohol or drug abuse, then they will be blamed. Gopalji says this is compounded by the ever-increasing rate of divorce which has made families paranoid, so they begin to look for someone reliable to help them navigate the marriage process and find a stable match for their son or daughter. In fact, the high divorce rates have compelled Gopalji to add a small disclaimer to his registration form, ‘Marriage will be done at the risk of the couple only’.

  Gopal Suri’s language has its own idiosyncrasies, its own syntax, its own vocabulary, and its own rules of grammar: the genesis of his language is newspaper matrimonial ads. Here is a sampling of his (and other brokers’) ‘vernacular’:

  ● No matter how old the to-be-wedded are, they are called ‘children’ or ‘kids’. In the world of Indian matrimonial ads unless you are married you never really grow up.

  ● The to-be-married are simply referred to as ‘those in question’. The girl’s family is referred to as ‘girl’s side’, and the boy’s as ‘boy’s side’, or as ‘the party’ or ‘interested party’. For example, Gopalji would tell me that ‘a party’ called him today to discuss negotiations.

  ● Age is relayed not by numbers but by year of birth. I am ‘84-born’ instead of twenty-eight, a thirty-year-old is ‘81-born’.

  ● The ‘budget’ is the amount of money the girl’s side is willing to spend on the wedding.

  An arranged marriage is a ponderous mating dance between two families. It is the parents of the singleton ‘in question’ who are usually in touch with Gopal Suri, almost never those who want to get married, as this is seen as a sign of desperation. Occasionally the ‘ones in question’ who do show up are the thirty-plus girls who are so desperate to be married that they spend endless hours at the office, almost as long as I do. Siblings too, are often intensively involved in the matrimonial process, especially brothers. Usually parents or a mother-brother duo or a mother-father-brother trio will come to meet Gopalji and scour his database to find a good match.

  The first step towards a successful match is to have an impressive biodata. A biodata is essentially a resume that includes a large colour photograph, birth date and time (for astrological purposes), height and weight, and also details of the family members including their income. Gopalji is a master editor and can add sheen to even the dullest of biodatas.

  For example, take Amar Prashant Khaitan Dhingra below:

  Name: Prashant Amar Dhingra

  Date, Time & Place of Birth:

  21 January 1981 13:42 Delhi

  (Most parents insist on matching horoscopes, and if the time of birth used to make a birth-chart does not match with a prospective biodata, then Gopalji has no scruples in changing the time by a few minutes.)

  Height 5'11"

  (Amar’s height is 5'8" but Gopalji has added three inches. He tells him to wear shoes with heels when meeting girls.)

  Family : Presently working for Nine ‘O’ Nine Exports as financial consultant. Has worked with a renowned export firm as senior financial consultant for 9 years. Earlier worked with SBI on a managerial position.

  Amar Prashant is our only Son.

  (This is an important point. Being an only son or the eldest son ensures an inheritance.)

  My wife has earlier worked with SBI as a branch manager and is now a practicing home loan counsellor with SBI.

  My daughter is an MBA (finance) working as a Lecturer with a Management Institute & is also pursuing a PhD (International Finance) from DU.

  (The more educated the family, the better. Since the family is well-educated, Gopalji thinks it wise to include everyone’s education.)

  Education : Engineering from Amity school of Engineering & Technology Affiliated to IP University. Also pursuing Executive MBA (IB) from IIFT (Indian Institute of Foreign Trade).

  Occupation : My Son is working as Module Leader with a renowned MNC in Noida. He has travelled abroad twice.

  (Travel abroad shows international exposure.)

  Assets & Status : Ours is a very affluent outgoing family with values & ethics & assets around Delhi.

  ANNUAL INCOME (boy) : 5.60 lakhs.

  (His actual income is 4 lakhs but Gopalji feels that an extra 1.60 lakhs would attract considerably better matches.)

  Let’s now take a look at the biodata of one of the prospective brides that Gopalji has in his database.

  Name: Namita Aurora

  Namita is very soft spoken, sweet natured and down to earth girl. She is smart and confident as well. She has very good small-town values.

  (Being ‘soft-spoken’ is seen as a very positive trait in the matrimonial market, as it usually implies that the girl will be ‘adjustable’. Also small-town values are often an asset—though it is clarified that she is smart and confident—especially in the metro cities, where conservative families feel girls are becoming too liberal.)

  Date of Birth : 13 June 1979

  Time of Birth : 09 42 Hrs.

  Place of Birth : Jammu

  Religion : Hindu

  Height : 5 Feet 04 Inches

  Complexion : Fair

  (Namita is not exactly fair. In matrimonial terms, she would be ‘whea
tish’, but Gopalji has photoshopped her photographs, and asked her to wear make-up on visits.)

  Hobbies : Gymming

  (When the candidate has no considerable hobbies, Gopalji, invariably lists ‘gymming’ because it suggests that the person takes their body seriously and will remain in good shape.)

  Astrologically : NOT A MANGLIK

  (Gopalji has made this bold, because, as I will discuss later, being a manglik is no good.)

  Smoking Habits : Non Smoker

  Drinking Habits : Non Consumer

  (No virtuous Indian girl in the matrimonial market will smoke or drink.)

  Monthly Income : 3.4 Lacs PA

  Special Achievement : Won Four Appreciation Awards & Certificates In Airtel.

  Education : Schooling Tiger Army Public School, Satvari, JAMMU 1997

  B.Sc G.G.M. Sc. College, JAMMU 2000

  MBA (Finance & Marketing), JAMMU UNIVERSITY 2002

  (Namita’s education from Jammu, a small town, is highlighted to exemplify her small-town values.)

  Occupation : Pvt. Sector Officer R.I.L Communications, Assistant Manager, 2008

  Father’s Name : Mr. V.K Aurora

  Father’s Profession : Chief Engineer in P.H.E.D—Water Supply Department

  Mother’s Name : Mrs. Reva Aurora

  Mother’s Profession : Homemaker

  Family Income : 7 lakhs (PA)

  (The family income is 5 lakhs, but Gopalji throws in an extra two.)

  Details of Siblings: Aman Aurora, 21 Years old, Brother, is doing Engg. From Bharti Vidyapeeth, Pune (Single)

  Neeyati Aurora, 29 Years old, Sister, is a Doctor in Batra Medical College (Single)

  (An unmarried sister of twenty-nine reflects badly on Namita, so her sister has been put at the very end of the biodata.)

  The picture accompanying the biodata is of prime importance. Gopalji has a photographer on his payroll who takes appropriate biodata photographs, and is in charge of complexion photoshopping.

  To find out more I speak with Sheena, the photographer. She tells me that she likes to take candid shots in natural home environments as opposed to studio shots because it ‘shows more personality’. She shows me some of her work—a girl sitting on her bed hugging a petal-pink fluffy teddy bear, her long hair styled perfectly. Sheena points out that she is wearing a salwaar-kameez. Gopalji suggests that all the photographs be taken in Indian clothing or conservative western clothing, like a long skirt or jeans with a long-sleeved top. She shows me another one of a boy (in reality he is middle-aged) wearing a tight t-shirt and standing next to his car his hands folded self-consciously over his belly. Sheena says that she likes to portray her clients’ hobbies or interests and passions through her photographs. The girl in the salwaar-kameez loves stuffed toys; the boy loves his cars. Another photograph appears with a television set in the background. This boy, she says, loves watching cartoons. I ask if people like reading, if she has shot any pictures with books. I imagine that if I got a biodata picture shot I would make sure I had a full bookshelf behind me. Sheena gives me a doubtful look. ‘No, not really. Maybe magazines, but no,’ she says shaking her head, ‘not even that.’