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Indian brides no longer in the US
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By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - Not too long ago, Indian men working
in the United States were considered to be the most
eligible bachelors. Recession in the US economy, a cap
in the number of visas as well as thousands of Indian
techies being sent back home has rubbed the sheen off
the exalted status of Indians abroad, at least in the
nuptial market. The non-resident Indian (NRI) badge is
no longer enough to bag a beautiful bride, with parents
lining up their girls for an assured life of comfort and
high living that was automatically assumed for any
resident of the US.
Despite claims of a
globalized economy and Internet networks and dating
sites proliferating in small towns, over 80 percent of
marriages in India are still "arranged" by parents of
the bride and groom. The process involves periods of
discussions, wherein the pros and cons of the girl and
the boy are weighed before a mutual agreement is finally
reached. Dowry is very much part of this
institutionalized process, with the girls' parents
usually parting with a substantial amount of their
lifetime savings to garner the best boy. MBAs from top
institutes such as the Indian Institute of Management,
young Indian administrative service officers and, till
recently, NRIs settled in the US or Europe were
considered the prize catches.
In scores of
newspapers carrying advertisements in their matrimonial
sections, the catchwords "NRI", "Green Card", "Permanent
Resident", "H1-B visa", "dollar income" and "software
engineer" elicited the maximum number of responses from
starry-eyed parents of girls looking for a
foreign-settled son-in-law, at any cost. It was a risky
business to send a girl away to a far-off land, with
plenty of money changing hands as per steeped Indian
traditions. But, all in all, it was a double bonanza for
the NRI groom who walked away with the girl and the
goodies gifted by the girl's parents for the couple's
welfare.
And there are no prizes for guessing
the most sought-after NRIs in the past decade. From
dharma bums in the 1960s, nerdy academicians in the
1970s, to persevering physicians in the 1980s (with
plenty of overlap), the 1990s saw the arrival of the
geeky Indian techie. Indians are estimated to have
snagged nearly half the 900,000 H-1B visas since the
program was instituted in the US, and such holders
carried the premium ticket of the marriage market. It is
no longer so.
Feeling the pinch of this NRI
thumbs down is a sub-sector that till recently blossomed
due to the fetish for foreign Indians. These are the
marriage bureaus specializing in collecting databases
across the world with branches in key locations,
websites with interactive features to arrange for live
online marriage meetings, travel agents who organized
would-be NRI-groom packages, packing in as many meetings
with would-be girl brides in a short duration, and
detective agencies fine tuned in checking the
antecedents of the sometimes Non Reliable Indian (a
moniker that has stuck) keen on the possibility of a
foreign wife or girlfriend tucked away somewhere or
claims of a Green Card and job profile being untrue.
Marriage bureaus dealing with these
inter-continental tieups say that recession in the US
economy and visa curbs have resulted in the days of the
NRI honeymoon coming to an end.
"The demand for
US-based NRI grooms has come down drastically. People
who are coming to India on leave sometimes find
themselves jobless when they go back. Many software
engineers are coming back home," says Chiranjeevi Rao of
Kaakatiya Quick Marriages.
A report in The Times
of India says that a year ago the US accounted for about
70 to 80 percent of the matches, but now the share of
United Kingdom Indians has grown to the range of 30 to
40 percent at the cost of the US.
"Opportunities
in the US have come down. Jobs in the UK are perceived
to be safer than in the US. At the same time, unlike in
the past when parents assumed that anybody in the US or
Europe was doing well, care is being taken to ascertain
all the facts," says Venu Gopal of Hi-tech Quick
Marriages.
Not that the NRIs have helped their
cause too much in the past. A seminar on "Disturbing
developments related to Indian women marrying
NRIs/foreigners" organized in July under the auspices of
the National Commission for Women highlighted the need
to be aware of the cultural hiatus that can exist
between a NRI and a resident girl.
The seminar
dwelt deeply on the breakup of such marriages, resulting
in trauma, with women needing psychiatric help to
overcome the ordeal. Experts said that the emotional
fracture that a girl underwent could never be
compensated with any amount of money or counseling. In
most cases, it is difficult to track down NRI grooms
(who cause such a predicament) in foreign countries.
NRIs deserting spouses is quite common with estimates of
as many as 10,000 women in the state of Punjab alone
dealing with such a situation. But this has not been a
one-sided tale. For every NRI marriage that has not
worked out, several have had happy endings.
But
all is not lost yet for NRI bachelors. While US-based
NRIs have lost the edge, domestic software engineers are
popular among parents who want to play it safe. "Any
software engineer who earns around Rs 50,000 [$1,000]
per month and works in a prestigious firm is also in
demand. All the Indian IT companies are now offering
competitive salaries," adds Gopal.
This comes as
no surprise as the domestic IT industry is in the midst
of a boom, with most returning techies being absorbed in
good jobs here in top flight firms such as Infosys,
Wipro and Satyam, to name a few.
From being
sought as NRIs and now as resident Indians, the story
could very well be one of looking at two sides of the
same coin.
Siddharth Srivastava is a
New Delhi-based journalist.
(Copyright 2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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