Thursday, January 22, 2009

MORE MARRIAGE STORIES....

It has been obvious for some years now that young Indian immigrants to Canada have been found to be desirable marriage prospects by other Indians, who are desirous of living overseas. Given the relatively easy and fast sponsorship process in Canada, which does not require a sponsor to be a citizen (unlike in the US), Indians have been in the habit of immigrating to Canada as "single" and immediately return to India to get married and sponsor their new spouses. This has been a fertile source of marriage fraud and unscrupulous "agencies" who exploit this loophole.


Recession takes bloom off India's marriage market

STEPHANIE NOLEN

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

January 22, 2009 at 4:56 AM EST

NEW DELHI — Irene O'Brien and her parents sometimes gather for an evening to review the prospects: What new groom looms on the horizon? Ms. O'Brien, who, like many Christians in India has a "Western" name, is 29 and is beginning seriously to consider her prospects in the marriage market.

She has given her parents the task of combing their social networks to find her a suitable partner.

Until a few months ago, her ideal prospective husband worked in the booming information-technology sector and had coveted NRI (non-resident Indian) status, with a job overseas. That, indeed, described the groom of choice sought by millions of single Indian women in the past decade.

Then the global financial markets crashed, taking with them a few other markets, including that for India's most sought-after grooms.

"What happens with all this recession going on is that there is no kind of security - marriage means security, but when there is no stability or security, how can a parent give their daughter to someone who is in IT or an NRI?" said the eminently practical Ms. O'Brien, who writes for a neighbourhood newsletter in Noida, a high-tech hub outside the Indian capital of New Delhi.

"Rather give her to a government official, which is much less salary but many more perks, because in India, once a government officer, always a government officer. Even when you retire, you are taken care of. But you marry an NRI and then he loses job and what can you do?"

Many of India's matchmaking services, which range from informal networks through religious organizations to vast Internet dating sites, are reporting an abrupt shift in priorities: The IT groom, with his soaring salary, and the NRI, who promised a life of luxury overseas, are suddenly badly out of favour, as high-tech companies begin to lay off workers and Indians with foreign jobs start to slink home after being pink-slipped, a verb suddenly ubiquitous in café chat here.

There is some good news, however, for the likes of Ms. O'Brien.

"The flavour of the month is working women," said Vivek Khare, who heads Jeevansaathi.com, an Internet matchmaking site that takes its name from the Hindi words for "soulmate" and has 1.5 million members. "Because of the downturn, people want to get married and have both partners working. The searches for brides who have jobs have really gone up since October."

But engineers are slipping steadily down the search lists. While India's economy has not yet been hit as hard as those in the West - growth for 2008 is believed to have fallen from a projected target of nearly 8 per cent to "just" 7 per cent instead - the sense of anxiety is growing here. Thus, the humble Indian bureaucrat, whose legendary job security paled utterly beside the much higher salaries and perceived glamour of IT-sector jobs, has seen a sudden rise in lustre, Mr. Khare said.

Vibhas Mehta, head of business at Shaadi.com, which has millions of members and claims to be the world's largest matchmaking site, reports that the popularity of civil servants has climbed steadily since October.

Here, too, NRIs are losing popularity, while working women are hot - searches up 15 per cent over the past year - and the self-employed are newly enticing.

But, he said, IT and finance professionals continue to remain relatively popular search subjects, which he attributed to the fact that the Indian economy is still comparatively strong. Anish Sapra, 26, and working for an Internet business in Delhi, said he has yet to see his stock drop on the site. "I haven't had people say, 'Oh, I'm not interested in you, you're in IT,' " he said confidently, then paused. "Not yet."

The wedding business in India has taken a hit overall - the cooler winter months are traditionally "wedding season," and in recent years, in the larger urban centres, these were lavish multiday affairs where the bride's 13 changes of jewel-encrusted lengha testified to the country's growing prosperity.

In this grim economic climate, however, the society pages are filled with laments for "the real Indian wedding," and there are chastened discussions of whose celebration took place on a mere weekend, or, horrors, a single evening - just 350 guests, no elephants, fireworks only five minutes long.

But Mr. Mehta said that his business Shaadi, which means "marriage," can only benefit from the economic crisis. Overall searches for spouses are up 17 per cent since the crash began in late September, "as people are looking at finding an emotional anchor for themselves," he said.

Or maybe, of course, they're just sitting around their offices with more time on their hands.

Valini D'Souza, 25, and husband-hunting in Mumbai, said she will not alter her plans, crash or no crash.

"I am looking for an IT groom - or [one in] international banking. Those jobs are well paying, and that helps when you're starting off fresh.

"This phase will end in the next year and you will see things getting better, or at least in three years," said Ms. D'Souza, who works in public relations in the IT world. "So I haven't changed my partner preferences. I might just have to delay the celebration [of a marriage]."

Then, she added, with a determined sort of romanticism, that too much preoccupation about earning potential and job security misses the point.

"If at the end of the day you have a person who is willing to share everything with you and a shoulder to lean on, that's what counts."

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