After some struggle to trace the match maker, Asha and her parents had to patiently explain him their idea of an ideal groom. He promised to get back to them with prospective grooms ‘as soon as possible’-which turned out to be 8 whole days!
With Asha’s insistence, after the fourth day, the family decided not to be dependent on only a single source and decided to place an ad in Sunday’s matrimonial section in a leading newspaper. The number of words was a constraint, and they ended up editing most of their requirements.
The match maker turned up with 7 horoscopes but all of them were refused by Asha. The ad appeared on Sunday and was followed by eight calls. The ad was repeated on the following two Sundays and the family collected half a dozen mails from the newspaper office during the following weeks. Finally with Asha’s participation the family narrowed down the choices to three.
The parents and the couple-to-be spoke on the phone for what seemed like hours! Finally, a visit was arranged with the prospective groom. As the families spoke, Asha and her prince charming got talking as well and began sharing their experiences, likes and dislikes…you get the picture!
Some (no, a lot!) more talks and meetings followed and it was finally decided that the couple would now be ‘committed’. One of the marriages was settled!
Time taken to
establish contact with groom: 30 days
Looking online for a compatible partner….
After some initial coaxing, Mahesh registered himself on two matrimonial sites-www.shaadi.com and www.bharatmatrimony.com. Registration took about 15 minutes during which he specified his interests and gave a brief on his family background.
He also browsed through existing profiles by using narrower search criteria. He found prospective brides matching his interest and his father’s preference of family background in his city. It took a little encouragement from his parents to send a mail to three of the girls whose profile he saw.
A mail followed by a reply, then another mail, then the inevitable Yahoo! and MSN chat (A matrimony site even offered a chat service between members who are online). Though never a substitute for meeting a person eye to eye, Mahesh did gain some sort of the insight about the persons he was chatting with. It must have been the same for the prospective brides as well.
Our man finally zeroed in on one girl who seemed to reciprocate his intentions. IMs led to telephone calls which eventually led to the two families meeting up.
The comfort level was much better (as far as I could tell) as each of them knew what exactly the other was looking for owing to the detailed profiles online. It was one more match made!.
Time taken to
establish contact with bride: 16 days
| And The Winner Is… |
| And the winner is… obviously the Tech Way! You can create your own detailed profile, view detailed profiles, and even chat online. Searching through members of your city, preferred educational background and career are as easy as specifying search criteria. This, gives great freedom to the person(s) in choosing his / her partner besides being really easy to put up a profile. No visiting the newspaper office, no drafting and cutting down on words and no waiting for it to appear in print once a week. Mahesh certainly had it easier! |