Sunday 17 October 2010

Bride Search

This is what I came to know from a Person, who is/whose family is searching for a Bride. They use a popular internet based match searching website. After talking to them, I thought that I should write about this. Afterall, this is not my first encounter with such type of people.

Here are their observations:

* Why don't they respond when they are contacted. They jot down the Profile details etc., and promise to get back. But they never do. If they are not interested, why don't they let us know? When contacted again, they give a curt reply saying "If we didn't call you back, it is understood that we do not have interest in the Profile".

* Why do they not post photos. Nobody is going to morph them and make a salacious picture out of it. Some photos are password protected. The general tendency is that the photos of these people are way less good than the photos of all the other people who have bravely posted their photos.

* Still worse. What is wrong in hiding the name. A lot of profiles have the name "Later", "Will be disclosed later". Can't fathom why.

* The majority of them do not want to search outside Madras/Bangalore/Hyderabad. Some profiles display that they are ready to relocate anywhere. When contacted, they say that they are not willing to relocate. When asked why then have they written something else, they do not give a satisfactory answer.

* All the profiles have a commone line: "Traditional yet modern". Well, whom are you trying to please?

* "Boy with clean habits required". The girl involved would be staying in some xyz city abroad and the majority of the boys/girls abroad are atleast social drinkers. In some cases, the Father of the Bride would have smoking/drinking habits. But he would be very adamant in having a guy who is a teetotaler. [On a personal note, I know a couple of people who live abroad and consume alcohol and are also non-veg eaters. Their matrimonial profile says nothing of these. On the contrary, the profile specifies that they are pure vegetarians and with clean habits. The downside of this is that all the grooms/bridgrooms are categorized as "cannot believe what they say"]

Some requests from the Bridegroom's family:

* If you are a brother or sister of the person involved, please hand over the phone to your parents. Do not deal with the parents of the Bride/Bridegroom yourselves. This way, the elders feel humiliated to talk to younger people, who also cross question them.

* If you have a couple of prospective Bridegrooms to choose from, let them know about it. Making them wait without giving them any reason is not polite.

* Keep your write-up on your profile short and sweet. Nobody has the inclination to read a full page during the initial search.

- - - - -

I hope, I haven't left out any points said by them.

Voracious Blog Reader

7 comments:

Adiya said...

சோகா சொன்னிங்க அப்பா !!!

Quite practical and normal i feel.

Voracious Blog Reader said...

Hello Adiya,

Thanks.

How was your experience?

Voracious Blog Reader

aparna said...

haha that was funny...."if you have more than one prospective" :)

Voracious Blog Reader said...

Hi Aparna,

Welcome here.

...funny....but thats the state of affairs.

Am already in your blog and reading "amazing paati"

Sowmya Gopal said...

I am going to play the devil's advocate now (Disclaimer: I have no personal experience with arranged marriage but a lot of hear-say)

- Telling someone that you are not interested is very difficult. Most people follow the policy "its better left unsaid" because in some cases it turns very nasty or embarassing when the other person still insists on being in touch

- Many people don't want the interest to be purely based on looks and hence the lack of photos. I have seen this apply to both extremely good looking people and those at the other end.

- Traditional yet modern is perfectly valid these days. Most girls can switch from madisar to jeans, from payasam to wine within a span of few moments to satify the respective people and I think that is what is needed in today's world.

-What do you think will happen if a profile says "groom can drink/smoke - not a problem", I'm sure no groom or his family will be interested in that. The groom with clean habits is just a perfunctory addition.

Sree's Views said...

Hello Sowmya,

Thanks for bringing up some points.

* In most of the cases, the parents are the ones who get in touch with each other. No parent would insist to keep in touch, despite being turned down.

* In those days, when the Marriage was fixed by word of mouth, what you say is possible. Now-a-days, as you are aware of, it is usually through websites.

Now, look at this Scenario:

Assuming that there isn't any photo. The Bride/Bride groom likes the profile very much and are ready to pursue. They exchange photos. What if they don't like the Bride/Bride groom? You can't turn it down by saying something else.

* Wearing Jeans or T-shirts is considered way of life now a days. But not drinking Wine. Why does one have to satisfy the Society? Does that mean that a Vegetarian has to eat meat when dining with people?

I don't know how many Boys wear (or like to) Veshti properly. Never mind the panchagajams. The same hold for the Girls when it comes to sarees. Both of them wear it "thazhaya thazhaya", which shows very much how they are not used to it.

* Better to tell the Truth now than later. If the Bride/Bride groom knows that this Truth will not come better across, it is evident that they are doing something wrong. Else, they wouldn't mind disclosing it right?

By the way, what was your experience?

Anupama K. Mazumder said...

What is this "clean habits" bit?

Related to smoking/drinking? Or Eating non Vegetarian? or taking a bath everyday? Better specify!!