With this Ad

I thee wed.

The average age in my new place of work is just 33.9 years old. I am being incredibly nosy and trying to find out as much as I can about the people around me; not just in the context of the job but enquiring about family as well. The cultural training on India on the global mobility app shared by HR warned me to expect my colleagues to ask about my personal life because Indians do not separate their work and private life in the way that Europeans might. Family is incredibly important to them so they show interest in you by asking about the thing they think is most important to you. And Indians can be quite blunt and forthright in their questioning!

In my random chats with people, both male and female, most are married and most seem to have only one child, approx 10 years for age, or grade 3 to 5 is the usual answer when I ask how old the child is. A child seems to be defined by how much education it has progressed through!

The thing that strikes me is how it is the norm for these young people to leave their home towns and travel to where the work is, or rarher the work they want to do is, which is in the big cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune etc. The journeying starts with university, as in the UK, but then continues when trying to secure a job, and then again after getting married, moving to where both can find work.

And interestingly, with all this journeying no-one I have spoken to so far has met their spouse other than through an arrangement by family. At no point in their student and early work lives do they expect to find a life partner. They fully expect that their family will take on that responsibility. I sense that my own children's arrangement of living with their partners in an unwed state is seen as a delinquency on my part as a parent. Everyone looks sort of bemused when I say I have grown up sons who live independetly with their partners. Why have I not arranged their marriages? What is the problem? Do I not care for them at all?

Arranged marriage and searching for a suitable partner for a much loved child is alive and well. Not much has changed in terms of criteria to my own parents' day judging by the matrimonial ads in the paper; fair skin, some sort of education, money in the family and, putting my own interpretation on why every potential groom or bride's height is provided, I think there is a requirement for some sort of height matching. If he's short she needs to be short too and if she's tall then she needs a tall bloke so she can wear heels if she wants to. The only other information provided is age or year of birth.

Then we get to the very Indian aspect of Matrimonials that you are less likely to see in "Lonely Hearts" in other cultures which is the caste or social stratification requirement. It seems your lineage is very important and it is essential to know whether the prospective partner comes from a family descended from priests, or from scribes, (yes really! ), or any other of the numerous castes and sub-castes in India. Whilst rooted in and attributed to Hinduism a form of the caste system is present in other religions in India too.

I am not knowledgeable at all on the Hindu Caste system but I found an easy to read, high level explanation from the BBC here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35650616

I had to google some of the terms in these matrimonial ads such as, for example, "Agarwal". I know it simply as a popular surname but doubted whether people were seeking a partner with a very specific surname. Turns out a simple surname carries alot of information including not only which caste but also what region or area of India they are from and what line of work they were in. I can understand region as a criteria for selection because of the diversity of religion and language across India, you might want someone who is from your neck of the woods so you can chat and be understood, and the distance to travel to see in-laws at Diwali is less onerous. But knowing that centuries ago his ancestors were warriors, I'm not sure would convince me to marry someone?

And yet somehow, a 33 year old, 5ft 6in (167.6cm), fair skinned B. Eng in Mumbai, lets call her Madhu, from a rich Brahmin family, will be able to find her ideal life partner by disclosing just this amount of information. A mobile number is openly shared for initial, clarifying conversations with matchmakers, either people with that actual job title, or beleaguered aunts and uncles charged with finding a suitable partner for their sibling's child. This will then maybe lead to an introduction of the heads of the families and then the families, and then the prospective bride and groom. Only if all those go well will begin all the intermediate steps before an actual wedding.

In the 2011 India population census there were almost 84 million people in the 30-34 age group. Imagine how many phone calls Madhu might receive! Or, if we exclude non-Brahmins, males under 170cm, those outside Mumbai, those under 33 years of age, do we get a manageable number? Do we get any prospective grooms at all?

I wonder whether we could introduce a matrimonial movement to the City of London? With wfh still so extensive I imagine it is harder to find a life partner than perhaps it was before. I know we have internet dating, but I know 3 young people who have confided in me that they really want to find a partner but are struggling.

I feel my calling. There must be something to be learned from the hugely successful matrimonial process in India that I can apply to the City? The key will lie in identifying the golden nugget that will ensure matching success. In India, where family is everything and you can know so much about someone from the family from whence they came, it is hard to find the same defining attribute for someone in London. What one thing can Maddie, the 33 year old, 167cm, Financial Crimes Lead from Maida Vale ask to know about a prospect in addition to his age, height, line of work and where he lives to make her so sure he's the one that she is happy to share her mobile number with him and introduce him to her parents without ever having gone on a date? Hmm.

Answers on a postcard please.