Netrimony?

Before economic liberalization in 1991, middlemen in India enjoyed a very good time in business. Many bureaucratic hurdles could be leapfrogged through the middleman. Licenses for new businesses or contracts could be accessed easily through them. License Raaj(era) was boom time for them. However, there is another very important area where middlemen have played a vital role- getting Indians married.
Marriages in India have always been a big family festival. Just like getting through red tape in bureaucracy, there are many hurdles for a man or woman from a conservative family to get married. The caste, financial status of the family, the advice of family astrologer, and most importantly the religion should be the same. Then, comes the point of whether or not the man or woman actually likes each other. The middleman makes it easy for both parties. He informs both parties with the information and arranges meetings for them. I know many such couples who have been living happily together for years through this process-the best example of which are my parents.
However, over the last decade, the middleman is slowly disappearing from the scene. So, how are Indians getting married then? Well, Indian youngsters are now choosing their life-partners by themselves. In a country where ‘dating’ is a cultural taboo, how do they manage to choose someone? Thanks to Netrimony, a term used to describe many Indian matrimonial websites where one can create a profile and filter his/her search according to his/her caste, salary, astrological sign, religion and many other options. Glancing through the list, one can decide on the life-partner with just a click. I wasn’t quite interested in it until three of my friends got married through it in the past year. Now, I had to dig into it because according to India’s common cultural norms, 24years is the ripe age to get married.
My friends exchanged their phone numbers and finished most of the work of middleman without a slightest hint to their parents. One of the couples even managed to meet each other. It was a remarkable achievement in the history of Indian marriages that a couple could meet before their parents see each other. Surprisingly, parents can also create a profile of their daughter or son on that website. So, chances are high that you may be on the web without your knowledge. I guess, it would have been a big privacy issue in the US. Some call it westernization, others call it 21st century Indianization, but one thing is clear that India is not only developing economically but also culturally.
I searched through couple of popular sites and was impressed to find really good results as compared to Facebook. After spending couple of more hours, I started to realize the similarity of it with the dating sites like match.com, honey.com etc. After all, one in eight American married couples met online according to one YouTube video. Though, the business model of shaadi.com, a popular Indian portal, may differ in many aspects from match.com, their target customers overlap. One obvious difference to me was match.com offered to find you love before marriage whereas shaadi.com also offered ‘marriage before love.’