Oh, on Shaadi.com?

Life, according to me has five stages. School, work, marriage, kids and finally death. I am in the second and trying to jump to the third, but no luck yet. There are two reasons for that. First being if a guy hits 30, the only option he'd have are divorced women. Second, my hair follicles don't seem to like my scalp, so they keep committing suicides. At the rate of twenty per minute.

I missed the bus on finding a girl during school. The good one's were already taken, and their boyfriends never seemed to die. The left over one's were you know, left overs, so I never really bothered. Arranged marriages are the norm in our culture. Thank god, I am an Indian. My parents took over the responsibility and created my profile on a matrimony website. 

I would assume that any other countries website would have only criterias of age, location and religion. But our Desi's have a variety of permutations and combinations. Age, weight, complexion, build, location (Citizenship country and residing country), language, religion, caste, sub-caste, sub-sub-caste, kids. Lets leave it there. As the marriage brokers were busy doing nothing, the websites were easily taking over. There were many Bharatmatrimony.com, shaadi.com, jeevansathi.com, lifepartnerindia.com, h1bmarriages.com etc.

To begin with, no one agrees to get married right away. Which means the profiles are created by the parents. Not many are well versed with English, so the 'About me' section could be pretty entertaining. Never ever believe the complexion and build. If it says the person is fair, actually means wheatish. Wheatish means dark. Dark? don't even bother. Slim means plump. Plump means, she's a bus with two feet.

Over 80% of the profiles don't have any pictures. People are scared that their daughters face might be put on some naked women's body. Unless their daughter is Aishwarya Rai, they need not worry. If it was she wouldn't have had the need to on a website. Besides even if somebody sees it, you should tell them they shouldn't be surfing porn in the first place. Some put their passport photo. It's not a Immigration website for Christ's sake. The guys always put their best picture, even if it was taken ten years back. Later the girl mistakes the guy as the his father. 

It is hard. I don't like the girl who likes me and the girl whom I like, doesn't like me. Its kind of a vicious circle. Besides all the good one's fall in love and don't end up on matrimony sites anyways. So its not a big surprise. I was rather surprised to see another kind of matrimonial website launched recently. Its calledoverweightshaadi.com. One needs to be rather accepting about themselves to register in that website. It would rule out the possibility of someone not liking because of the way one looks. 

The subscription is not cheap. Its around $25 a month. It adds up when the profile is listed on at least four sites. This is how it works, you can express interest for free but have to be a paid member to view contact information or to send personalized messages. I try not to pay and just send a 'Interested' message. Unfortunately even the girls side do not pay and just accept without sending any contact info. Which means, I end up paying all the time.

I saw my friends profile listed on a website and sent an interest just to mess with her. Little did I know, that her parents put it up without her knowing.