Click to play videoNew Delhi: They have been married for just over a month now, and for Mohit and Renu romance is still clearly in the air.
A year ago, both were busy executives with no time or space to look for a partner. Love finally blossomed on a marriage website. It sounds geeky, but they say they have no regrets.
Indians are increasingly using the web to marry. Online matrimonials will have served 7 million users by this year-end and business is set to boom even more. So who's a typical user of these sites?
Chances are he will be male, he will be quite young and he will probably be very well educated. Most users are urban city slickers, though surprisingly, a huge 30 per cent are from smaller towns — a pointer to how India's changing its marriage rules. Interestingly websites are changing too and niche marketing is the name of the game today.
Deputy GM www.SimplyMarry.com, Rajat Gandhi says, "Marriage is about getting people with similar mindsets together and niche websites help do just that."
So while sites like BPOshaadi.com let you pick partners in the same job, secondshaadi and thirtplusshaadi.com cater to latecomers in the marriage game. Desimatch is for NRIs, mangliks.com for the astrologically inclined, Zujain for the Muslim community.
There's even positiveshaadi.com for HIV + patients and idontwantdowry.com for people against dowry. There's so much out there that one can be completely spoilt for choice.
But like always, there's a catch. This October, the cops arrested a man who had duped 50 women into marriage by posing as a UK-based engineer on a matrimonial website.
So remember to follow these tips to protect yourself on these websites:
- Don't blurt out all your secrets right upfront. Go slow.
- Avoid people who ask weird questions, don't seem honest or who demand money.
- Never meet alone unless you trust the person completely. Instead, stick to public places and do ask your friends and family for advice.
- Surf the web to find more about your future partner. Stick to profiles verified by the site or use paid services to cross check candidates.
(With inputs from Pallavi Paul in New Delhi)
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