Window Shopping for a Husband

Imagine walking down the streets buck naked, trying to pretend everything is normal when everything inside you is crashing. That is exactly how I felt naked, dejected and extremely uncomfortable as I created a profile for myself on the popular Indian Matrimonial site Shaadi.com. I had always held the belief that a matrimonial or, for that matter, even a dating website was a place for losers. What kind of person could not even find love in the real world. I had never imagined I would figure in the statistics, that the site uses in its ads to describe its popularity. 26, in love and about to get engaged, life couldn't have looked rosier. But like Arthur Schopenhauer said, " Whatever fate befalls you, do not give way to great rejoicing or great lamentation... All things in life are full of change, and your fortunes may turn at any moment." And that is exactly what happened. But youth has its fallacies and mine was backing the wrong horse. After a week of constant parental pressure, there I was, window-shopping for eligible bachelors at Shaadi.com. Writing about myself, my long term goals, partner expectations and family background in 500 words felt like a betrayal of self. It made sense but the words had no soul. Reluctantly I uploaded an old passport photograph and was finally ready to check my options. When I think about it now, there are traces of Hindu mythology in the method I have resorted to find myself a groom. Princesses in the mythological times held something called a 'syamwar' or 'Groom for self ' All the princes belonging to a particular caste, falling in a particular age bracket, were invited to the princess' kingdom. They were given a difficult task to accomplish. Whosoever completed the task following the rules would be the groom. What the site required me to do was something similar, pick the age bracket, the caste I wanted him to belong to, specify the qualifications I wanted him to possess etcetera etcetera. Hell, I could even select the part of world I wanted him to be in. All this along with my interests, hobbies, choice of cuisines goes into my profile under the heading 'My shaadi'. Now I was all set to 'Partner Search'. Entering a few key words can open up a world of opportunity. My mom, sitting right besides me wanted me to look up all the engineers of my caste. As I predicted the match threw up all sorts of weirdoes, some of whom had even provided pictures of themselves. The profile I had slaved over, trying to make a good, honest impression on someone who managed to find my profile while browsing by, was either treated as a creative writing exercise or space for a matrimonial ad by them. A typical profile read - I am tall, fair, good looking, intelligent, caring and loving, Brahmin boy, well settled, working for an MNC in Bangalore. I am looking for a woman with traditional values who would like to share my ambitions and look after my aging mother. I wanted to scream," Boy, what you need is nurse maid not a wife. There was steam coming out of my ears, by the time we finished searching all the men of my caste. My mom was on a different trip altogether. The guy who looked the ugliest, couldn’t spell words like believe (belive) properly, were the ones she wanted to send an interest to.

To someone not acquainted with the way the whole arranged marriage thing works in India, firstly, you need to have an idea of the caste system is all about. Secondly ,the Indian culture.
Since time immemorial, the caste system divides the entire hindu community into 4 basic groups – The warriors or Kshatriya/Rajputs , the high preists- Brahmins , the traders – Baniyas and the untouchables – or shudras. The kings in the earlier days used to belong to the warrior caste and occupied the top position, till the priests made God and communication with god their sole property and switched to t he number 1 spot. And so over the years the fight between who is no.1 and who is no.2 hasn’t resulted in any concrete result. In these castes there are about 20 –25 subcastes , some divided on the basis of our forefathers vocation 20 – 25 years back – intercaste marriages Here is how it works. Using the keywords you wade through the mass of men who fit your criteria. If you check the box for photos, you are faced with a sea of mug shots to choose from. This is where first impressions count. Click on a slightly interesting photograph, read the profile, if you like what you see, check a little box at the bottom that asks you if you would like to send your 'interest' to the person. The person checks his/her email, see your name, check your profile, sees if you fit what they have in mind , then either accepts or declines your 'interest'. If they accept and are paid members of the site they can send you a little note along with their acceptance telling you what email id to communicate with them on. Boom! We have a connection. That is, if you are not already having second thoughts about contacting them in the first place. Finally at work, in peace I checked out some matches with keywords of my own. I always wanted to travel and live in an exotic place, that became one of starting point of my keyword search - France, Italy, Switzerland. I also looked for people with non-conventional, interesting professions - pilots, merchant navy and of course from the adventurous world of advertising. I expressed my interest to guys I thought sounded a little promising and waited. The early responses my profile got were a little disappointing - a balding paediatrician, customer support professional from Bahrain itself and nasty looking businessman from Hyderabad. These were people whom my profile had attracted on its own. WHOA! I didn’t log on for a couple of days after that. Till a few days back when my yahoo messenger told me I had one unread email. It was from the Shaadi tea, informing me that Mr. coolguy had accepted my interest but of course as a member who still hadn’t paid for the services of the website, I could do nothing except wait. I wasn’t about to spend $55 in some thing I didn’t believe in - yet. And then, just yesterday, I got a message in the inbox of the website. Some one who I had expressed interest in, had accepted it, with a little note. The note contained his email address and even his mobile number. I sent him a mail and was surprised to receive a reply within the hour. We got on to yahoo chat and spent the next couple of hours chatting. It was hesitant at first ( I am a little shy while talking to strangers) but slowly a rapport was built with funny repartees flying, back and forth. It was then I realised fears are easy to throw away once you put them in their proper perspective. If you analyse them, you'll often find that they're really silly and immaterial, and the vast majority don’t even exist outside your mind. So I have little to lose and lot to gain, maybe a budding romance or maybe just a new friend. Either way, my mind is open to all the wonderful possibilities. What ever happens next, I’ll keep you posted.

P.S: For someone who hasn’t even had a pen pal, shaadi .com is a big leap of faith.