Inder weds Irina
Manimugdha S Sharma
Beatrycze Auttenberg is a 29-year-old Polish woman based in London. She recalls meeting her husband Nihal on matrimonial site Shaadi.com in 2010. "He had expressed interest in me and I had accepted. Then we started emailing and talking to each other on phone; but it took a while for both of us to take things forward. Nine months later, he came to see me in London. There was no doubt in my mind: I wanted him as my husband. We holidayed in Europe for a while before going to Poland to meet my parents. They liked him. Next, we went to meet his family in India. I was a bit apprehensive, as I had heard about arranged marriages in India and how unhappy parents become whenever a cross-cultural marriage happens. Luckily, it all went fine," she says.
So what brings foreigners like Auttenberg to Indian matrimony sites? Gourav Rakshit, the COO of Shaadi.com proffers an explanation: "There are Indophiles who want an Indian spouse; there are also those who are either living in India for work or want to relocate here. Whenever a foreign national registers with us, we take extra caution to verify his/her antecedents to ensure that it's a genuine person. We don't want our users to have a bad experience ever," he says.
Of the foreigners registered on Shaadi.com, 42% are Whites, 25% West Asians or Arabs, 25% Blacks and 6% Latinos or Hispanics. Another matrimony portal SimplayMarry.com has a number of foreigners as well. Sanjeev Kumar, the business head of the portal says there are foreign nationals from the US, UK and Australia who have registered on the site. "Some of them want partners in their home countries; some of them want to imbibe Hindu culture and have Hindu marriages. They get introduced on the portal and then take matters offline. So it's not always possible to keep track of the number of such marriages, but marriages do happen," he says.
Incidentally, while foreigners may want to marry Indians, many Indians have some special preferences with regard to foreigners. Ishita Garg (name changed) from Delhi has a profile on BharatMatrimony.com, and she makes her partner preference very clear: "Foreigners are welcome to contact me, but please only Whites and Latinos. I don't want Blacks." She also wants "very fair or fair" Indian men to contact her.
Skin colour is also a consideration for some of the foreigners looking for Indian spouses. "Tanned Indian skin, dark hair, and dark, beautiful eyes are such a turn on. Indians have dark skin, but their features are delicate, like Caucasians. These elements make Indians attractive," says Harriet Cook, who lives in Bristol, UK. She goes on to add that Indians are not really foreigners for the British. "Indian families today are like what English families used to be not too long ago. I believe Americans are foreigners for us, not Indians. So I don't see why Britons marrying Indians should be seen as something surprising."
There are other factors, too, that are making Indians desirable. Renowned Russian feminist writer and talk show host Maria Arbatova believes Indian men make better husbands and fathers and her country should import grooms from India. "There are more women in Russia than men and finding a suitable man for marriage becomes quite a challenge. Indians are closer to us emotionally. So the idea of Russian provincial girls and Indian suitors is acceptable," she says.
That Indian men have strong family values also makes them ideal marriage material. American Evelyn Walters says she was pleasantly surprised to meet Sukanta Dey, an investment banker. "We met in a matrimony portal and started talking. When he came to the US to meet me, I found him very different from the men I knew back home. When he proposed, there was no way I could have said no. He also surprised my parents when he touched their feet in the first meeting itself. It's been 11 months since we got married, and my parents and I are very happy with him. Also, he doesn't call them by their first names but addresses them as 'dad' and 'mom'. Anyone would kill for such a man," says Walters.
It's not just the men. Indian women, too, are finding suitable foreign dulhas online. Igor Belyakov married Nishtha Srivastav in India. They met on Shaadi.com. "It was love at first sight for me. I flew down to Mumbai and met her on Valentine's Day, 2010. After that, time just flew. We had a lavish Indian wedding: she wore a lehenga and I a sherwani. Our marriage papers took some time to process, though. Today, we live both in India and Russia. Thanks to my wife, I'm now a global citizen," says Belyakov.
(Some names have been changed to protect identities of individuals)
