Match referee

In a nondescript town in Kottayam district of Kerala, Leela is a name more often referred to when you seek a helper at home. She is a house maid, errand lady, postnatal caregiver, all rolled into one. And matchmaking is just another mantle she dons every now and then. She is 60 going on 25 and watching her work you feel ‘multi-tasking’ could be a word coined with Leela in mind.

Matchmaking or ‘brokering’ comes easy to her as she has plenty of contacts in Kerala and outside. She is constantly on the look out for prospective candidates.

“The families usually call me for the wedding once it is fixed. The next assignment generally comes to me during those weddings. And if I see any young people of marriagable age there, I approach their parents without any hesitation. It’s my livelihood,” she says.

For a person who has played Cupid for more than 100 couples, Leela has had fairly good experiences to narrate. Well, there are times when she was treated badly by families, but she takes it all in her stride.

“There are people, who even after the marriage, invite me for every special occasion in their family. And there are others who give me some extra bucks in addition to my regular fee if I procure them a nice groom or bride. There are also people who get the details of the groom/bride from me but when the marriage actually happens, refuse to pay me saying they contacted them through some other channels.

“Even though my fee is very nominal I have come across some rich families who refuse to give me the entire amount quoting some silly reason. But I have no hard feelings. When it comes to a business like marriage, cheats are lurking everywhere,” she says.

As for her fee, Leela has been charging her clients Rs 3000 till recently. She says she had to increase it to Rs 5000 since “travelling from one place to another itself would take up more than half the amount.”

The popularity of matrimonial sites or newspaper ads are no deterrent to her profession. “Over the years, I have earned goodwill among many families. More than two people, marriage is actually a coming together of two families. So these families know that I will get them only the best,” she says with a smile on her face.

Arathi Menon

Planets shall speak

Come Shravana, the auspicious month in the Hindu calendar, and matchmakers get killingly busy. Their phone says — ‘please try after some time’ — and their diary gets filled with appointments. Even in these days of Internet, matchmakers still find their ground firm.

Matchmaking, a Vedic interpretation to a happy marital life, has come of age. “It is the belief in tradition and our culture that matchmaking is still a viable option for a successful marriage,” says astrological consultant and matchmaker C V Rangashetty in Mysore.

Rangashetty has been in this line for the past 14 years and claims successful marriages of his VIP clients — who are from television, film and other fields — are his trump card. He is a retired assistant agiricultural officer, whose passion to watch stars drew him to this profession.

Matchmaking is where a girl’s and boy’s horoscopes are matched in compatibility chart to help find a right chord between them to sustain their marital life. Helped with astronomical formulas and other guidelines, compatibility factor is determined in both the horoscopes. “It is mainly taking the count of compatibility levels in a boy’s or girl’s horoscopes with 36 being the indicator. The count level between 25-30 gives the go ahead for the marriage while poor count turns down the proposal,” says Shetty.

Stars in horoscopes are taken into consideration since horoscopes are made at the time of birth depending upon the positioning of stars. The 7th house in kundali indicates marriage and Venus is the significant factor in determining marital happiness, he adds. 

Explaining further, Shetty says apart from knowing the star characters and their match, the planet’s enmity and friendship (in both the horoscopes) are also checked. There are some planets like kuja (mars), shani (saturn) which may put blocks in the marriage and matchmaking would help check these before the wedding, adds Rangashetty.

Further, he adds there are certain pujas in temples like Kukke Subrahmanya temple and Kalahasti in Tirupathi that are suggested to evade the dosha.

Being a lifetime member of Indian Council of Astrological Sciences, Rangashetty dedicates at least two to three hours reading his client’s horoscopes. He says increase in divorce cases has immensely influenced the parents these days to seek matchmakers’ help even when it is an inter-caste marriage. They prefer to have the horoscopes matched before going to tie the knot.

Matchmakers, sometime have to go through ordeals of matching the poorest matches when the two parties demand. However, he quickly adds that matchmakers cannot help, when the parties want to take the risk.

While superstitions like girls having mula nakshatra are considered a taboo even in love marriages, there are people who want to embrace the relation despite all these, he says emphasising that values and commitments sometime score better over matchmaking.

Kumuda H

An evergreen business

Mention matchmakers and old timers in Delhi break into a chant. “Rishtey hi rishtey. Mil to lein. Prof Arora.” Even Jyotishachary Shiv Shankar Shastri remembers that line. That’s the graffiti that accompanied railway travellers in the ’80s all the way out of Delhi. Any observant rail passenger worth his ticket knew that Prof Arora lived in Regarpura.

In fact, that’s about the time Shastriji shifted to Delhi from Kolkata. The man from Mithila, Bihar, belongs to a family of purohits (priests). In 1968, he moved to Kolkata to perform pujas at various homes, in keeping with what his forefathers had done. Matchmaking was an extension of his job, which he did for just the dakshina or token offering of thanks.  

In 1982, Shastriji moved to Delhi. Soon after, he found himself turn professional matchmaker. Shastriji has a clientele that reads like an India’s who’s who, but he honours the faith his clients place in him and would prefer not to mention them by name. Models, industrialists and business families, both resident Indians and NRIs, turn to Shastriji for advice before making one of the most crucial decisions of life.

Shastriji is confident of the credibility he commands. Adds his third son Pankaj, “We offer personalised service. When someone registers with us, we visit the family to see for ourselves and get to know the family, since we make personal recommendations.”

The relationship sometimes spans generations. A couple whose marriage he had fixed have now approached him for a match for their son. “To most of our clients, we are like family,” he shares. Since they know the families so well, Shastriji and his sons take minor details of both the families into consideration. “Not one match we have fixed has failed,” he says.

Shastriji never feels the need to advertise since the word of mouth suits his style of functioning. “People advertise for us,” he smiles. He knows most of his clients personally. Much as he did when he began matchmaking in Kolkata. “The only difference now is the professionalism,” he says, pointing to the desktop and laptop that house data. They also have a website, www.metroshaadi.com.

Did the dotcom boom and the arrival of mass matchmaking services ever trouble them? “The population of India is so large, there is space for us all,” says Pankaj. Having a niche clientele helps. In fact, with this outlook, it does not faze him that a growing number of people from the marriageable generation are choosing their own partners. “This is an evergreen business. As long as children are born, we will be in business.”

In fact, in the late 1980s, Shastriji had discussed the coming of India’s computer age with Rajiv Gandhi. “He assured me that it would create more employment and not threaten us.” Much the way things have turned out for matchmakers in India. In fact, the dotcoms sometimes contact them for details on clients, but Shastriji prefers never to share any confidential particulars.

While most of Shastriji’s clients are from north India, including those who live south of the Vindhyas or abroad, he has quite a few clients from south India as well. “Just two days ago, I finalised a match for a family in Chennai,” he disclosed. Till today, he and his three sons have fixed at least 10,000 matches. The family business is in safe hands.

The youngest of his four sons, incidentally, is studying to be an engineer and Shastriji is happy for him, just as he is happy that the older three are in his profession. Together, they have witnessed the ups and downs of people’s dependence on traditional matchmaking. Faith has done a turnaround in recent years. “In 2003 and 2005, kundli software worth Rs 500 crore was exported from India,” points out Pankaj.

Perhaps one of the major factors that explain Shastriji’s popularity is his personality. Cheerful, courteous and positive, he is not dogmatic. “The kundli is not that critical when God is match-making,” he points out. “You can’t change destiny,” points out Pankaj.

For Shastriji and his three sons, faith and personal attention are the discerning factors. This USP maps their client list across the length and breadth of India and overseas, from Dubai to Canada.

Benita Sen

‘Brokering’ with ease

The advent of technology has no doubt revolutionalised matchmaking in Kerala too rendering many traditional brokers jobless. Their number has dwindled significantly in a state where the urban-rural divide is virtually non-existant. It was in these circumstances that P S Suja, a 49-year-old mother hailing from the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border village of Parassala, became a full-time matchmaker.

Suja took up marriage brokering only five years ago when her husband died leaving her the onerous task of bringing up their two teenage boys. She says she must have fixed at least 25 marriages so far for clients living between Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam, most of them of upper class families.

“It was tough because it was a man’s domain, but again I found that direct brokering had its relative merits,’’ says she. “I found that unlike the marriage bureaus, direct brokering involved very little liabilities and mostly one’s PR skills. It was only a question of getting a client’s confidence which was easy because most of the time I was referred to them by others who were satisfied with my work.’’

She charges Rs 10,000 each from the bride and groom for a proposal fixed through her though she rues the largescale cheating that takes place. “I have been cheated of 30 per cent till now. The clients are literate and well qualified but they get very smart when it comes to paying up,’’ says Suja, who speaks fluent English. She points out that this tactic won’t work with online matrimony sites or marriage bureaus who make their clients pay even by use of force.

Suja says she is happy to run the business all by herself through her cellphone rather than set up an office and invite expenses.Suja owes her success mainly to contacts established while on her job. “From one marriage, I get at least three other contacts. But again, business is seasonal. It could even be spontaneous. Though it is a commercial activity, it has also been an enriching experience for me in getting to know different types of people, their lives and the way they perceive the world,’’ says she. 

R Gopakumar

All in the stars

Pandit Santosh Tiwary, 40, is arguably the youngest person to have donned the mantle of priesthood in Bihar. At a tender age of 19, this tall, fair and handsome lad from Saran district had become the priest of one of the most revered temples in Patna.

The untimely death of his father Pandit Brajkishore Tiwari, the chief priest of Shiv Temple, in 1987 led Santosh to step into his father’s shoes.

In the evening hours, after the aarti, one can find him matching the kundali (horoscopes) of prospective brides and grooms on the verandah of the temple. A way is suggested out for those who have manglik dosh. “Usually in such cases, I perform Maa Katiyani’s puja,” says Panditji.

A learned Sanskrit scholar from Chapra, Panditji admits he inherited astrology from his uncle Pandit Dhruv Tripathi. “This was one quality which has helped me in good stead and yielded rich dividends,” says Santosh Tiwary, whose list of clients includes top bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, journalists and ministers.

Even in this age of Internet, where people prefer matchmaking through computers, there is a growing demand for Panditji. “Most of my clients, after matchmaking through computers come to me and say, “zara isko bhi dekh lijiye (please have a look at this computerised horoscope too).”

“I have solemnised at least more than 1,500 marriages in the last 21 years,” he calims.

Abhay Kumar

Check mate, traditional way

Marrying a perfect stranger is an issue with the Net-savvy boys and girls today. Even worse would be watching their astrological chart changing hands a zillion times to reach the right person. Besides love marriages, the overriding interest for e-marriages has now put a question mark on the traditional matchmakers’ livelihood.

Meet Shambhu Chakraborty, 67, of Kakinara, an obscure village in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, who came into the trade accidentally but finds the going tough.

“I have been forced to shift my base to rural areas as clients in Kolkata and its neighbourhood no longer require me,” says Chakraborty. “Parents are either succumbing to the choices of their sons and daughters or matches are being made through computers.”

The last marriage that he facilitated in Kolkata was five years ago when he arranged a match for the son of a Bengali NRI settled in Dubai and pocketed Rs 10,000 as service fee. An increase in the number of matrimonial websites, marriage bureaus and marry-through-contacts besides online dating services have made the traditional matchmakers nearly useless in urban areas, according to him.

Necessity has forced him to revise his charges, which vary from Rs 301 to Rs 551. Barring lean seasons and not-so-auspicious months, his income varies between Rs 2,200 and 2,800 per month. “Not that I am happy, but I have no choice,” he rues.

Prasanta Paul

Keeping a sharp eye

She is 65, but still has those sharp matchmaker eyes that will help you find your perfect partner. Old age hasn’t stopped her from doing what she is best at. For Kokila, playing Cupid is a profession.

Attired in a cotton saree, and sporting a bindi with her hair adorned with flowers, the sprightly woman infuses hope into those seeking matrimonial services in Bangalore city.

Rummaging through biodatas and photos of prospective brides and grooms on the table, she can spot with remarkable acumen the best match for those who approach her.

With a ‘career’ spanning 30 years in the marriage market, Kokila still works untiringly towards more wedlocks. She has clients even outside Bangalore (Tumkur, Mandya and Hassan among others). “The number of people coming to me has gone down through the years because of Internet alliances. Still, there are those who trust me and come to me,” she beams.

“My entry into this profession was accidental. I was born into a big family and I used to arrange marriages for my nieces and nephews. Then I started getting calls from my friends as well. And gradually, I turned into a professional,” Kokila recollects.

Though she has lost count of the alliances that she paved way for, Kokila is proud that not many relationships have snapped. “And there is this particular incident that I can’t forget that still does me proud. Abhijith (name changed) — the son of a Sri Lankan refugee settled here— had come to me after four years of futile attempts to find a partner. Just two visits to my place, and he liked a girl... and now the couple is in Switzerland. I still feel proud of the efforts that I put in for their wedding,” says Kokila.

Most of her clients are doctors, engineers and MBA graduates. “I feel that education, job profile and age are the most important things that people look out for while seeking an alliance.”

Many specify that they want a bride/bridegroom within their own caste and community. Apart from this, almost all men demand for a fair and beautiful wife. “These things sometimes upset me and I feel that looks alone will not lead to a good relationship,” she says.

Despite opposition from her family, she clung to this profession. She feels that it is not just a matter of livelihood, “but the sense of satisfaction that I feel while helping people which is important. My family looks down upon this profession and they are embarrassed when people call me a ‘broker’.” But, for her, playing a matchmaker speaks of her identity and independence. “I don’t like to depend on others,” she justifies her choice.

In the age of blind online datings and live-in relationships, rarely does anyone look back at the traditional way of matchmaking. There were and still are people whose profession is matchmaking.

Senthalir S