Made in heaven, tied by caste (The Financial Express)
4 well edu boy Mumbai based 20.03.81/5’8” (Chandravanshi Kahar) Bihari, US MBA wkng MNC seeks well edu girl….
“An oxymoron, that’s what most Indians who really believe in ‘caste no bar’ would think on reading the classified above. Why must a 28-something young man, educated in a multicultural society (in the US at that) still be caught up in the web of caste? There is no answer really. The profiles in matrimonial classifieds are replete with caste specifications... Rajput (gotra Vats), Gangwar (Kurmi), Basnaal (Bisht). Incidentally, most of them stem from ‘urban’ India, a section of society that loudly condemns the decrees of the khap panchayats and rampant honour killings in rural India, but subliminally treads the same line of discrimination! It is a paradox not easily resolved or reconciled.
“‘When it comes to arranged marriages, the head rules over the heart,’ says Rohit Manghnani, business head, JeevanSathi.com, a marriage portal. Behavioural mapping of over 40 lakh people by the portal reveals that less than 1% of the people choose to not mention their caste. ‘To claim to be ‘modern urban Indians with no hang-ups about caste’ is the done thing, but as fact indicates, a very heavy bias for same caste exists across India,’ adds Manghnani.”
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