The Shaadi.com Specimens - Chapter 1

I registered myself on Shaadi.com around 2013 - 2014. I must be clear, I was always quite introverted, certainly not the social butterfly to mingle around in search of a life partner. Online matrimony web sites were the only way ahead. My family wasn’t very keen or forward in getting proposals. Towards the end of my search, one of my aunt’s told my mother that we should stop looking out now. I had clear directions to find a Roman Catholic, Mangalorean girl. Attempts of anything outside the norm, such as X1 had ended in a fireball, broken relations with family and worse. I had my own qualms as I have described in previous posts. As a non-believer, I wasn’t ever exposed to the circle of church-going women. As someone who didn’t experience college life, never did I get the chance to mingle. I am a non-believer, I graduated late, through a less-than-ideal correspondence university, and I do not have a master’s degree, no MBA, nil! All of these tossed my hopes out the window.

While I spent most of my time writing this blog about the experiences with my ex-es, I spent most of those years trying to make failed communication attempts with women from Shaadi.com. This I believe has led to my deteriorated mental health and extreme cynicism. I reached out to more than 100 women between 2013 and 2017, maybe chatted or mailed some 50 - 75. These were very limited conversations that lasted 5 sentences, sometimes 50. Every few days, there was a glimmer of hope, followed by crippling disappointment and rejection. There was a trend to kind of responses I would get. I am going to describe just a few in this chapter.

“How much do you make?”
That’s what the voice on the phone call blared, “How much do you make?”. I had to ask, what do you mean how much, and who is this? The lady shouted back, “No! How much do you make?”. “I don’t have to tell you. Who is this?”, I yelled back from my seat at work. She said she had found my profile and she was considering me for her daughter. “What’s your CTC? How much do you make every month?”. You would think that this could be a HR talent acquisition call, but I heard this woman scream in Konkani. This wasn’t a HR professional.

Imagine the plight of a grown-up woman, a mother trying to find it in herself, the wisdom and righteousness to find a son-in-law based on his income. The outcome can be disastrous, a terrible relationship, regret and worse. It also should tell you something about the lack of sensitivity and people skills. When I refused to respond, I also asked her, how much does your daughter make? She dodged the question and abruptly hung up. Eight months later, the woman called again. I hadn’t saved the number, so I had to face the repeated “HOW MUCH DO YOU MAKE?” scream. I told her she had called before, and I wasn’t interested in her daughter. A few months later, she called our residence and my mother replied. My mother too refused to blurt out my income, but apparently, they ran an elevator business. Her daughter was a teacher at a school, while her son and husband ran the business. That was the end of that.

“I’ll report you to the police!”
The daughter of a major government official contacted me on Shaadi.com. She was very attractive, well-educated and I soon learnt, she was the daughter of a very established, and then, in the limelight, government official. I remember being baffled. I was a bit upset at first. It didn’t seem right. I reluctantly accepted the request and there was some conversation. I remember trying to convince her, she was way out of my league. I’m not nearly as attractive, I don’t have the credentials and you come from a massively influential family. I don’t know why you’ve contacted me. I tried to ignore her, but she insisted that we talk at least. She seemed polite, but I was still sceptical. Something didn’t add up.

A few searches on the web revealed details about her father, a follower of some sort of sadhu, guru types. There were videos of this guru with her father on the floor along with a bunch of others, back in the early 90s. The university from where she did her MBA was one of those off-beat, cultish types. They seemed more for the creamy, elite few. Their ideology and motto were hogwash too, in this very hypnotic manner.

Regardless, we spoke a couple of times every week for about three weeks. My scepticism slowly wore off, and we were quite friendly. After three weeks, she slowly started ignoring me. She mentioned she was not actually interested. She had a guy who wasn’t showing the initiative in making the next move, so she was waiting on him. I was merely there, to entertain her. She had no intent on marrying me. She was hoping that guy would come around. I remember being terribly disappointed and upset. I clearly remember telling her, you cannot be taking people for granted and using them for your entertainment while something works out elsewhere. To a barrage of such disgruntled messages, I got blocked and a reply “Hey you, I’ll report you to the police!”.

“I studied in the UK. I can’t let my parents down”
One of the early proposals came from a girl on Shaadi.com. She had completed her M.Pharm in the UK and was working at a pharmaceutical firm here in Bombay. She mentioned her salary and the kind of work she did here, and it was the everyday, casual, 9-5 job. Turns out India is not the hot bed for medical research, it’s in Europe and elsewhere. Our chats were quite innocent, she was into music and classical dancing. She would speak bits and pieces of Hindi, and Konkani alongside English. We were only a year or two apart in age, had a decent chemistry and casualness. She spoke regularly for a week or two before coming to the very abrupt conclusion that marrying someone who hadn’t studied enough, that too in India, was a bad idea. It would be disrespectful to her family and they would look down on her. It would be very bad on her, to marry someone like me. I remember us ending that conversation. It’s not the first time I was facing rejection. Occasionally, she would try to contact me on Google Talk, trying to make small talk, asking me how my search was. I would be quite blunt and minimal in my conversation. Last I checked, she was still single nearly 6 years after our conversations. Here’s still hoping she finds someone who studied in the UK!

“I am MBA. I am looking for MBA”
It’s quite amusing when you hear the most absurd things said in the pursuit of a life-long relationship. The need for an MBA as a partner is one of those instances. I think, if you’re a surgeon or a pilot, you might want to find someone from your line of work. Out-of-sync schedules and difficult lifestyles can hurt a relationship, and perhaps two individuals in the same field helps with the understanding. I don’t know what two MBAs might share with each other. Would their evening talks be how they spent hours looking at spreadsheets, or how they struggled to make a good-looking presentation?

One such girl message me on Shaadi.com. She was now in Bahrain on an assignment. She chatted me for a few minutes, before asking me to send her my ‘profile’. This profile is no different than a CV you send for a job application. It’s identical to a CV, but it includes a small-talk. There is a ‘What I like’ section and who your parents are. It might have been the sudden move to Bahrain that helped with her perceived worth, but I remember receiving a rejection message a while after receiving my profile. It said, “I an MBA. I am looking for MBA”. In addition, I also received a poorly worded mail with my name spelt wrong. I remember responding to it with a line or two, recommending a copy of Wren and Martin.

As I write this, I’m now particularly calm but I wasn’t like this. Maybe my current state is a result of the exposure to such situations. The sum of all these rejections and frustrating experiences, piling week after week for years has made me nihilistic. Today, I do not care if you abuse me or insult me. I do not care if you take me for granted or talk behind my back. I do not care if you’re going to spread rumours and backstab me. I’ve seen far worse times. What I’ve described in this piece, is only just a sample.