JOIN USLooking at the number of marriage brokerage agencies offering brides and grooms to Indians at home and the Indian diaspora across the globe, it is obvious that marriage has become really big business, writes Vimla Patil
When Independence came to India, fixing marriages was the job of ‘go betweens’ of a caste or community, who collected the horoscopes, photos and family details of prospective brides and grooms to help parents with a varied choice for a suitable candidate. Later, parents or elder relatives took over this job. Towards the last decades of the 20th century, love marriages became the trend, while arranged marriages still ruled the roost in rural and small-town India.
Today, there is a new avatar of the matchmaker taking India’s marriage market by storm. Crores of young people find their spouses via the mushrooming matrimonial websites and marriage brokerage companies that are flourishing with revenues crossing Rs 200 crores a year!
Gourav Rakshit is the perfect example of the revolution in this industry. The Chief Operating Officer of Shaadi.com, he is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and has a double major in economics and engineering science from the University of Rochester, New York. “There is a transformation at the heart of India’s social revolution; there is a massive democratisation in the process of selecting one’s life partner. Today, women like to make their own choices in all walks of life! Nowhere is this more evident than in the sphere of finding Mr Right or a compatible partner,” he says.
Heart of the matter
Match-making was always the favourite ‘hobby’ of Indians. Now it is a big, lucrative business and organised like an industry, maintains Dev Choudhary, who started his marriage brokerage service 25 years ago when he realised “the potential growth and income of the business and made it my full-time profession, giving up my wholesale grain trade”.
“With almost a billion young people under the age of 35, the marriage market in India is booming. I reckon more marriages happen among Indians than any other group in the world. The extended family is on the wane and divorces are rampant. The highest number of partner-seekers comes from the age group of 26 to 32. In such conditions, finding the right partner is a time-consuming act. This is where we help,” he elaborates.
The process is as fool-proof as it can be. Both the bride and the groom put their demands on the table; they are frank about what is acceptable and what is not. The website gives details of the brides and grooms, but they offer the contact details only after due payments have been made. Sometimes, fees have to be paid at the time of registration. Independent brokers have their own rates for the process until the marriage takes place. From there on, it is up to the couple to make the relationship work. But they can seek guidance from the agency’s counsellors.
“Marriages organised by me are democratic and based on correct guidance. The couple is given many opportunities and advice to help them finalise their decision. Right from choosing the partner to arranging the wedding and designing clothes to ordering food, all services are made available in a time-saving and comfortable manner by the professionals. The two families have just to relax and pay,” says Shailesh Mehta, a marriage consultant from Mumbai, who looks like a small-time film star. He carries his iPad everywhere he goes and claims to know astrology well enough to match horoscopes perfectly.
Yet another variety of marriage brokers are the ‘community specialists’ like Jagmohan Rathi. He is a Marwari and proudly says that there is no groom or bride in the community worldwide that he does not know of. “I am sure that there are specialists for every community and every strata of society. Match-making is not seasonal. It goes on all year, so there is continuous income guaranteed. Often, unlike earlier, relatives or friends are unwilling to interfere in marriage decisions. Also, parents and children may have disagreements…in such cases, we play peacemakers,” he avers. When the final match is good, he adds, families are more than willing to shell out the money. Well, that makes for good business.