In India, the NRI Groom Goes Out of Style

In India, the NRI Groom Goes Out of Style

By Mridu Khullar Monday, Aug. 17, 2009


A wedding at the Turf Club in Mumbai, India
Kris Pannecoucke / Aurora photos




On India's vast array of matchmaking web sites, horoscopes are being replaced by income statements. Questions about family history are being dwarfed by questions about potential layoffs. And the U.S.-based, NRI (Non Resident India) groom — once the most coveted prize at the top of the Indian matrimonial hierarchy and seen by many families in India as their daughter's ticket to a better life — has become the latest casualty of the world's economic downturn.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/arts-and-society/26364-india-nri-groom-goes-out-style.html




Ten years ago, Indian men born or working abroad could almost be assured of meeting a dozen or so possible brides on wife-hunting trips to India. "Typically, NRI women want to marry NRI men, and NRI men want to marry native Indian women," says Sandeep Amar, business head for SimplyMarry.com. (The discrepancy comes from the perception that a woman living in India will have remained true to the culture under less western influence.) These days, though, male suitors would be lucky to meet even one. Many women looking for a husband on India's matrimonial web sites, such as 25-year-old senior business consultant Vipra Gupta, are no longer interested. Since the global recession hit, Mumbai-based Gupta worries that if she were to marry an NRI, her future could become very uncertain. "What if in one or two months he loses his job and we have to leave America?" she asks. "It's a risky situation and I wouldn't want to get into it." (Read TIME's cover story about the state of marriage in America.)
Gupta's sentiment reflects a new confidence among India's youth who no longer view a trip to the West as the holy grail of financial and personal success. "In the early nineties, a guy who earned $100 in India would go abroad and make ten to twenty times that amount of money," says Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of Bharatmatrimony.com, a matrimonial website with a subscriber base of 15 million. "The demand for [ NRI men] was at its peak during that time."


In the past year, the economic downturn and the rise of India as a global player has changed all that. On SimplyMarry.com, another popular online matchmaker service, users' search for NRI men has gone down by 15%, reports Amar. NRI men, for their part, appear to have gotten the hint. There were also 20% fewer postings by men living abroad.


"Arranged marriage is a concept in which the bride's parents look for well-settled grooms," says Amar. "Stable and high-paying jobs and a well-settled monetary situation is the fundamental criteria." With so much news of job losses coming out of the US, he says parents of Indian girls are much more reluctant to send them abroad without a security net. Even the matchmaking period has increased, says Amar. "Previously, people used to close a match in around six to eight months. Now this matchmaking period has become over a year because men and women in India have become more discerning as consumers and they want more compatibility."
Prabhakar Janakiraman, for one, is feeling the effects. An IT professional who works on projects in both the US and Canada, 32-year-old Janakiraman says women and their parents are increasingly apprehensive about men from abroad. "If I were settled in India right now, I would have been easily married," he says. "But parents are thinking twice now about whether a person is reliable or not." Janakiraman briefly considered moving back to India to look for a good match, but he's been lucky so far, at least in the professional department. He received his green card recently and is considering a move to New York.


With India's rise on the global stage, women too, are prospering. This makes them reluctant to quit high-paying jobs in their home cities in India and move to the West, where they are unlikely to get working visas or jobs, at least for the first few years. "I'm a very career- oriented girl, so I can't just leave and sit at home for a year" says Gupta. "I want to work and I want to focus on my career. These things matter." Amar likens arranging marriages to shopping for food. "It's like a department store," he says. "You can pick up whatever brand you like." For the Indian bride, it seems, the preferred choice is now closer to home.

 
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GOOD..for what it is worth...ONLY the worthless Malaysian Grooms ( who nobody trusted with their daughters in malaysia) would go to Punjab and delude the DESIS..returning with educated beautiful brides..which they then "tortured"..because the groom would be more in jail than out..drug addict..jobless at best..and a jailbird at worst....So many SINGLE MOTHERS in malsyia are living proof ....the worthless groom's first order of the day was to make his desi wife pregnant so he could prove his manhood...after that Rab Rakha !!

Gyani ji
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26364

I am saying Thanks here not for the message but for you consistent and passionate loyalty to the down-trodden. Do these women get any help? What do their lives become?

Narayanjot Kaur Ji...
Their lives are one constant STRUGGLE.
In Malaysia the LAWS of Immigration are very lopsided. IF there is any "divorce" within 5 years of marriage..the Foreigner spouse is DEPORTED immediately and has to take her "Malaysian Citizen" children back with her to her country of origin.
IF she manages to stick around for at least 5 years... AND she has a Malaysian CHILD....then she can STAY on a YEARLY Basis VISA renewed every Yera on Year Basis..no "permanency" !! ( No fixed rules are followed by the authorities..some get 1 year some get one month. 6 months..so one huge hassle all their life..as the "officer" on duty the day they go for visa gets to decide..no appeals !!). The YEARLY VISA is just for STAYING..NO WORKING..allowed....unless she applies for a Yearly Work Permit..but then she forgoes the Other Visa and puts herself under the WP Visa rules which allow the WP for 5 years..and after the last one she has to go back....There is a "law" that allows permanent resident status...but there is ahuge BACKLOG..and all applications end up buried in boxes lying somewhere..no light of day...many have been waiting 15 to 20 years !! PR means the person can Stay and WORK - without Visa but he/she retains her ORIGINAL Citizenship...and has to go to her embassy to renew it..so she gets no Social security/Employee provident fund benefits etc..so employers exploit these .
So all these poor souls are in "PURGATORY"...bringing up their children single handedly any way they know how and can manage..a few do manage to find a benefactor..a charitable family etc for help...but essentially no ORGANISED EFFORT yet. Their children grow up not knowing when their mum may have to leave them...and IF the hubby is still around ( in jail or lying stoned somewhere in some back alley)..then he and his fmaily CAN THREATEN to SEND MUMMY HOME TO INDIA..wehnever a "dispute" arises..Once on a visit to the local immigration Office to help one such..i came across another "sikh Family" there..husband, his mother and one daughter of about 3...and I distinctly heard the Daughter telling her MUM...Bahlla na bol...tenu des bhejduun...( Dont Talk so much..I will send you back to India !!( This was when the child was naughty and the mother tried to pull her back...i saw clearly that this threat to send mummy back was a common affair..at least in THAT "family"..and MUM in LAW was the HITLER in Charge....obviously strong enough to turn daughter against mother !!). Being far away from her PARENTS and family is a big disadvantage for them...so can be bullied easily.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26364
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26364
I have personally helped a few of such unfortunate single mums...but there are too many.
The Sikh Community has a few Private Punjabi Schools run on weekends...their organisers employ these women as teachers ( because originating from Punjab their Punjabi is "better" than the locals..at the very least they can SPEAK Punjabi even if they never went to school !!..so a small income is generated for them as they get a weekly allowance..others sew clothes..baby sit..do tuition...etc etc for survival).
With political upheaval in malaysia happening recently..i hope these women will also get a change in their fortunes....as now even the "minorites" are valuable votes...

Not a pretty picture. But it sounds as if in time their fortunes may change for the better.

Brides be damned!
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26364

Why I swear to it, that I could line up a column of healthy native gals from Ferozpur to Chandigarh as soon as I land and woo all of em.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26364

You dont see me sweatin, i got tried and true strategies ....... love potions ...and when push comes to shove; persuasive begging techniques

the love doctor
sinister

@ sinister

Sinister ji

You might consider an advice column for the lovelorn. Heh