March 23, 1998

It's the latest spouse-seeking ploy: no parading the prospective bride, no embarrassing moments, none of the hanky-panky that parents worry about.

By Sheela Raval

All her life, 25-year-old Meeta Parekh had dreamt of a knight in shining armour on a gleaming white horse. He finally came ... but riding the information superhighway, downloaded by her on an IBM Thinkpad. Nine months after she began her search, Parekh spotted her soulmate -- Himanshu Dadarwala, 31, hotel owner -- while she was surfing the Internet. Romance was just a few e-mails away. After several sweet nothings punched out on their keyboards, the lady cooed: "If you asked me to marry you, I would." A week later, they met, they saw, they connected. Says Dadarwala, "This is faster and more direct than any traditional way of matchmaking." No parading of the prospective bride, none of the hanky-panky that parents worry about -- just an impersonal start to a very personal relationship.

It's the latest in a string of spouse-seeking ploys. As the Internet invades our lives, people are discovering the benefits of computer courtship. There are over 150 matrimonial websites where you could post details of your life and hope to net a partner. According to estimates, such sites have been increasing at the rate of 20 per cent over the past four years. It's easy to see why.

"It's a perfect matchmaking system where technology helps to sustain traditional values," says Ruchika Gupta, a 23-year-old professional from Delhi, who found the love of her life while surfing the Net. For one, parents aren't likely to object to their children switching from Net-surfing to Net-dating. For another, youngsters will hardly object to browsing through Net ads usually posted by techno-friendly peers.

Last month, Vishal Torani, 29, a Mumbai chartered accountant, blinked at a message on his computer screen. "Hey dude, what's wrong with you? Why your uncle and not you? Drop your all-traditional inhibition and be innovative and modern, you fool!!" read the breezy e-mail from a young lady in Bangalore. Torani was intrigued. Turned out that his well-meaning uncle, a computer engineer, had posted an ad for him on the Internet. Says Suchitra Bhave, 24, and now Torani's fiancée: "I was just browsing through matrimonial websites when I saw a witty write-up on Vishal given by his uncle. It made me think of sending him a funny e-mail and I got hooked."

So did Torani. So, also thousands of young people. Taking a cue from the many dating sites in the US, a number of Indians have started Internet matrimonial services over the past five years. Some newspapers have gone a step ahead, they've begun to offer a comprehensive package that includes an Internet ad along with a matrimonial ad. "The response and results have been more positive than I could've imagined," says Drummond Miles, who runs a Net-matrimonial service from Mumbai. Miles charges a monthly fee of around Rs 400 ($10) for anyone wanting to log in to the site. Auntiji, another popular site, has had 35,000 hits since it was set up in 1995. Veeru, who works with Saakshi, another website, claims that at any given point in time, there are over 1,000 advertisements placed on this site at the rate of $9.99 a piece.

Business is booming. Many of these sites provide free service or the advertising rates are amazingly reasonable (approximately $25 or Rs 1,000 for six months). B.G. Mahesh, Internet consultant, says he started his matrimonial website because he saw the "increasing popularity" of such sites.

So impressed is the Agarwal community with this idea that last month they launched their own matrimonial website. The irony of caste consciousness entering the Net is not lost on B.K. Agarwal, general secretary of the Maharashtra Rajya Agarwal Sammelan's Mumbai unit. "We are simply responding to the need of the time," he says.

The Net is more convenient and has greater reach than the newspapers. "The ad on the Internet led to more responses than in the national dailies," says Vinod Gupta, a Delhi-based builder, who found his bride on the Net. And if a keyboard is not exactly your idea of romance, hear Latika Sen, who married Arvind after an e-mail affair. "We've exchanged some of the most spontaneous messages," she sighs. "It's these messages -- cerebral in content and romantic in intent -- that brought us together for life."

In the case of Chandeep Sahani, a Delhi fashion designer, it was her father who advertised on her behalf. The Net gain? A New York-based computer engineer, Deepinder Sahani. The Internet, says dad, "in some ways helps to preserve our culture". So welcome to the contradiction that is India: an ad placed on the Net by a father who wants to give his li'l girl a choice and a girl who wants daddy in the picture.

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