In India, the NRI Groom Goes Out of Style

   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 — oncethe 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.

   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."

   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.



    Source: TIME Magazine – Aug. 2009