My Parents Won’t Know How to React

In terms of dating someone, race/culture has never mattered to me as much as the person herself. It’s not like I’m that cultural, anyway. But it’s never been a secret to me that my parents would prefer a brown, at-least-partially-religious bride.

After my experience with the Indian matrimonial site Shaadi.com, I was convinced that finding an Indian wife was a long shot because of my atheism.

I was so wrong.

I can now find an Indian atheist wife!

Posting under the title “Looking for an Atheist Life Partner”, Abhilash Pillai is an IT professional from Bangalore. “I’m looking for compatibility. I can’t stand it if someone is religious,” says the aspiring groom.

He says he couldn’t trust his family to find an atheist match for him. “They would just try and get me back into the faith by finding a pretty Hindu girl.” And he is quite hopeful the atheist matching services will help him out . “I cannot face the religious ceremonies at a traditional wedding and when I have kids I don’t want them to grow up Hindu,” says Pillai.

How is Shaadi.com responding to this site?

Vibhas Mehta [no relation], shaadi.com’s business head, says this percentage [of non-religious clients] was probably even higher in the earlier days when more individuals posted profiles themselves. With more parents posting their children’s profiles now, the numbers listing “no religion” declined as, “parents are very bothered about community and religion, much more so than individuals.”

When asked why Shaadi doesn’t list “atheist” instead of “no religion,” Mehta replies: “Why do we want to make more communities? We’ve already got too many for God’s sake.”

More potential business by adding a tiny bit of computer code?! Never. That would be downright crazy.

I’m not actually planning on using this site.

I just find it great that there is such a need for it.


[tags]atheist, atheism, Desi, dating, relationship[/tags]