On-line matrimony

My neighbour Vasudevan told me in total exasperation that he is unable to find a suitable groom for his engineer daughter in spite of his several visits to various matrimonial bureaux in Bangalore and Chennai.

Vasudevan has been very kind to me lending an economic daily everyday without a murmur for the past five years. I told him to stop worrying and explained him how he can post his daughter’s profile in various matrimonial sites available in the internet without spending anything and how hundreds of prospective grooms would be able to view and respond to him.

Vasudevan thanked me profusely for giving this valuable advice. He said, “You see, I know nothing about computer, you handle this internet stuff yourself and just let me know when ever any one from the groom’s family contacts you.” I was overjoyed since this was an easy job for me (that is what I thought) and thought Vasudevan won’t mind lending the paper for the next five years if I do this job properly.


I registered as a free member in a Tamil matrimonial site and filled up all details as dictated by him and gave my mobile number and my email ID in the contact details. To my disappointment I did not get a single call or message from any one for the next one week except from the call centre of the matrimonial site twice everyday advising me to pay up Rs 2,999 so that I would be able to view the horoscope and telephone numbers of the grooms.

After waiting for one week, Vasu suggested to me to register his daughter’s name in a Kannada matrimony site since he felt his family has almost become Kannadigas by virtue of staying in Bangalore for over 20 years.

I filled up all details on line and registered as a free member in a Kannada matrimony website. There was no success even from this web site. No one called me except the guys from the call centre of this site, asking me to pay up Rs 2,499 so that I can view the telephone numbers of the Grooms. I started getting four calls a day, two from each matrimonial website.

In the meantime Vasu’s wife realised that her daughter’s horoscope has ‘Kuja dosha’(Manglik). When I informed about this matter to the call centre of one of the web sites, they said they have exclusive website for boys and girls with Kuja dosha and volunteered to register the girl’s name in the web site free of charge as a one time special offer of Rs 1,999. I was moved with this gesture and started looking for suitable grooms in this new web site also.

From two calls per day in the beginning, I started getting eight calls every day, spoiling my afternoon nap which I had been enjoying even during my 40 years of government service. My wife brought another bad news that Vasudevan and his wife had extended their two hours afternoon nap to three hours after I volunteered to take over their responsibility.

I decided to change my SIM in my mobile to escape from these call centre guys and advise Vasu to look out for suitable grooms from the families of his friends and relatives.