The holy matrimony of "elite" academic degrees

So, a new website for IIM & IIT folks to find life partners from the same species. I don’t think there is a better testimonial to the way how arranged marriage system works in our beloved country. I find the very idea quite amusing. Amusing enough to make me write a blog after a hiatus of 6 months.

This is not the first of its kind. There is a website called Premium Matrimony for people from top ranked colleges across the country. There is Elite Matrimony, a premium version from Bharat Matrimony, that provides the same humbling experience to the rich.

For someone who is from the stable of seemingly-highly-valued IIM brand, I find the service being a bit skewed. A simple analysis would have shown that the female demographic is of minority in these campuses, more so in IITs which doesn’t award 5 free marks to female candidates. Any passed out IIM guy, who initially stepped onto the campus with wild dreams of dating someone, would tell his frustrated tale of how the girls who join are either already committed or end up getting committed during the academic life.

These websites are going to be more skewed in terms of the demographic profiles than the campuses. It’s like the story of the group of guys, who went to a nude beach to check out women, found only guys who were there for the very same reason. (This is not a real life incident and did not happen to me. Ok.. fine whatever).

The founder of IITIIM Shaadi says that women profiles in the website do not have high requirements,which are applicable to guys, to be featured on the website. This is ensure a larger pool of female profiles it seems (see image above). This is totally unfair to the guys! Since this site is anyways superficial, why not have higher standards for women in looks/size/shade of color, the very things that guys obsess with? (I can hear the feminists drumming on my door).

Here are some ideas to make these sites better!

They could turn the website to an auction site. Potential fathers can come and bid for guys and gals using bit-coins, so it doesn’t come under the scrutiny of dowries. The person goes to the best bidder. Ideally the campus placement process should be this way. But considering that randomness in placement is preferred for social equality, somethings gotta give for the MBA folks who are stuck up with uninteresting jobs at non-preferred locations with a hefty education loan to pay.

The site should also have verified CGPA listed. Algorithms would automatically identify matches based on academic performances. The last thing we would want is 9 pointer marrying a 5 pointer, thereby bringing shame to the family by reducing the family-average-cgpa. People with D grades should be highlighted in red.

The site could suggest recommendations based on their specializations. We wouldn’t want 2 finance specialists discussing about having a baby with a discounted cash flow model and ROIs, do we? Or a marketing couple lying to each other all the time. Nor do we want the rivalry of an electronics engineer and a computer science engineer at home.

I don’t blame the person who has started this service under the assumption that people with similar "stellar" academic background would be compatible life partners. I don’t blame the people who have gone on and posted their profiles there with the hope that someone who has cracked a super competitive exam would be right person to spend the rest of their lives with. I don’t blame the parents who want the best college brand next to the names in marriage invitations. Nope, I’m not blaming anyone. This is just too funny to blame anyone!

I’m going to start a website for all the 5 pointers and dropouts from any college across india. Will be a huge market for sure. The website will be called SomeoneFor5Point. I’m also going to start a website based on “hotness” quotient. Women with hour-glass figures and men with six pack abs can only post their profiles. It’s time to be superficial.