By PRABEER SIKDAR
DEHRADUN, 18 May 2009: While laid off IT employees in Hyderabad and Bangalore are finding it difficult to tie the nuptial knot, for Doon based would be brides and grooms, the problem in the slowdown period is of a different kind.
“A change in the selection criteria of would-be-grooms has come about due to the slowdown,” says Bhupender Singh, owner of the Neshville Road based Gurukripa Sangam Matrimonial Services, a Marriage Bureau that specialises only in Punjabi matches from four major Punjabi sub-groups viz Bannu, Hazara, Arora and Khukrain.
“Now, some girls’ families, in this economic crisis, are willing to overlook the earnings of potential grooms if they have MBA, MCA or IT degrees from prestigious institutions,” he discloses, stating that boys with plain degrees (MAs, BScs, MScs, MComs, etc.) were no longer preferred by working girls.
“For qualified and well-settled girls, it is difficult for boys with plain degrees to expect matches,” he states, adding that he had also witnessed cases when some girls rejected boys even when they had permanent but lower level government jobs.
“So far, I have seen a 90% rejection rate for such boys, but the same is not true if the groom-to-be is a high ranking government officer.”
Trends
A new trend among brides to be, says Singh, is their preference for working boys (private sector) outside Uttarakhand, but whose families are settled here. “In Uttarakhand, there is not much money in the private sector. As a result, about 75-85% of the girls prefer to settle outside the state (Delhi, Gurgaon) post their marriage,” he explains, pointing out that there was not much of an impact of the slowdown on the marriage market.
According to Soni, owner of the newly established Nehru Colony based Bandhan Marriage Bureau, professionally qualified girls prefer boys in their same profession. “The trend, so far, in our bureau has been girls seeking boys with similar professional degrees,” she says, acknowledging the existence of some impact of slowdown. “Government jobs were always few. So, a groom working in the private sector is the only option left for the girls,” she clarifies.
Age
“A year-and-a half ago, when we started our marriage bureau, the minimum age for girls was 23, but now, almost 80% of them are 27 and plus,” informs Singh.
The average age of the groom during the same period, adds Singh, had increased from 27 to 29. “Now, almost 70% of the boys are aged 29 plus,” he points out, while describing this tendency as normal ‘as high qualifications are directly proportional to the age’.
Dowry
However, despite lack of a drop in the number of marriages during the current period, a major consequence has been an increase in dowry amount sought by grooms. “Earlier, the going rate was about RS 2 lakhs, but now a well-settled groom commands a price tag of Rs 5-6 lakhs,” reveals Moudgil, a retired officer of BHEL and owner of Jeevan Sathi (a Marriage Bureau), which he has been managing for the last 16 years.
Moudgil, for whom playing matchmaker is a pastime, claims to specialise in Army personnel marriages. “Girls are at a disadvantage now because boys are coming at a premium,” he says pointing out that Army Officers don’t normally demand dowry. “But, rising marriage expenses are also a fact, which cannot be ignored,” he says, at the same time.
Another matchmaker, who runs the Happy Couple Marriage Bureau on Haridwar Road, when contacted by Garhwal Post, adds that ‘it is a busy year’. He told this correspondent to contact him later as he was busy attending to a client in his office. Hope somebody got successfully 'connected'.
http://www.garhwalpost.com/index.php?mod=article&cat=Feature&article=1067
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