Hunting for a 'very qualified' bride

Some friends chuckled the other day as I rummaged through the Sunday Times of India and pulled away an eight-page section entitled “matrimonials.”

It is a little window into India, shedding light on the economic and social hopes of the families of would-be brides and grooms who take out personal ads to look for marriage partners.

Forget about the usual acronyms of U.S. personal ads, with the heavy overlay of sexual innuendo and orientation.

In India, the lingo is about a transaction of a different nature. Potential mates are described as “boys” and “girls” even if they are in their 30s and 40s. Women are described as “very qualified” and “issueless,” though I can only guess at the latter. Ads boast of salaries, graduate degrees, skin complexion and resident status abroad. Parents seek “alliances” rather than marriages.

Here are some examples:

“Looking for a very Beautiful, Fair, Slim and compatible girl with family values. The girl should be at least 5’5” Tall and from a respectable and well-connected family for Handsome Punjabi Khatri boy 38/6ft/US citizen, Electrical and Computer Engineer and Masters of Management from Top US Schools, President and CEO of his own Multiple Business. The Boy is on a very short visit to Delhi.”

Hmm. A CEO on the prowl. And here’s one aiming for “status.”

“Alliance invited for Khatri Sikh Clean Shaven Feb ‘78/5’8” MBA working with MNC from educated status family. Seeks educated bride from status family.”

Okay, so the guy can handle a razor. Welcome to the club.

Then there’s this potential bride on the auction block, if you can figure it out:

HOMELY MATCH for personable boy 34/178/9LPA MGR PSU Issueless Divorcee never lived married life NO DOWRY

“Homely” must be code for “not a party girl.” The numbers are trickier. I guess it’s age 34, 1 meter 78 centimeters tall, earning “9 lakh per annum.” The latter is a wild guess. The South Asians use the term lakh for the unit of ten thousand one hundred thousand, just as Chinese use “wan” for the unit of ten thousand. Question is, is that dollars or rupees? I’m still pondering the “issueless.” Does that mean “ex-husband not chasing me with an axe?”

Eating habits and religion play a big role in the ads. Here’s one seeking a special kind of girl.:

“Kashmiri Pandit handsome boy 27/5’9” Major Indian Army seeks b’ful girl ht. should be 5’4” convent graduate Punjabi Khatri girl.”

And there’s an ad for a diminutive vegetarian:

“Alliance invited for fair charming veg. homely KKK girl 27/5’2” convent educated B.Come(H) belonging to well estd.busi. family of Kolkata.”

Convent educated. Wonder if she’d like a Kashmiri Pandit Army major? But I hope that KKK doesn’t mean what it would mean in the States.

This final ad employs a word that one would never find  in U.S. personals:

“Christian Parents invite alliance for spinster daughter, 34 yrs 5’4”, M.Com MBA, Permanent Resident of Canada, employed with bank. Visiting India in December.”

In common usage, a spinster is a woman who has remained single far beyond the conventional age for marrying.

I hope all the pretenders find their “qualified” partners, and that they be slim, clean shaven, holding Ph.Ds and with green cards.

Comments

[BBS]

Tim, are you so culturally insensitive that you find the practice of advertising status in personals ads to be funny? Just because your native country "moved beyond" placing status information in personals, doesn't mean the men and women there don't advertise it in many many other ways, often more explicitly?

[Tim Johnson]

Thanks for the correction, Henry. I'm back in Beijing but am watching events in India on TV this morning.

[jeff]

TJ:

Are you still in India? Looks like it becomes a war zone there .

[Henry Bradsher]

A lakh is 100,000, not 10,000, and the reference must be to rupees per annum.

[Rahul BR]

Tim, have to agree, matrimonials never cease to amuse. One thing though, "clean shaven" for the Punjabi Khatri Sikh refers to his not having a beard. Many Sikhs have beards for religious reasons and he is just noting that he doesn't follow this specific rule.

[oToh]

Thanks. Very enlightening and entertaining. The talk on "status" is very common in Chinese marriage ads too.

[Doctor Jay]

Mrs. Jay works for a Indian born MD (a woman). She says, with solid authority, that "issueless" means "no children".

[Baoru]

This is funny and serious at the same time. :) It's real life. These people are lonely that's why they do it.