Single by default

There is no zing in my life,” confesses Tarun Narayan, 30, an IT professional. “During the day, I’m caught up in my boring corporate job. The mornings and evenings are drab. Only a wife can bring that zing.” Narayan has been hunting for that zing for more than a year now, both online and offline, without success. “I was a career-driven man all through my 20s. I never thought about silly things like marriage,” he recollects. Today, when he is thinking about marriage twice a day — “in the morning, before leaving for work, and at night, after returning from work” — he is finding matrimony an elusive kind of bliss.

Narayan might feel less despondent if he knew that he is not alone in his predicament. There is a growing tribe of single people in their early 30s who want to get hitched, but can’t. M Janakiraman, CEO of Bharatmatrimony.com, sees a trend. “In the last one year, there has been a 15 per cent increase in the number of 30-plus people registering on our site,” he says.

Sanjeet Saha, 31, is a media professional who doesn’t believe in one-night stands or ‘no strings attached’ affairs as a substitute for a commitment-heavy arrangement such as marriage. “I am not that type,” he says. Saha’s parents have been looking far and wide for a suitable girl for him without success. “I did meet a few girls. In some cases, they rejected me. In others, I rejected them,” he reveals.

So what’s the problem? “Nobody is ready to compromise,” he says. “There was this girl who I really liked. She also liked me. But she wanted me to relocate to Hyderabad, where she had a job with an IT firm. Now, much as I liked the girl, my work doesn’t allow me to shift from Mumbai, and she wouldn’t shift either. So it didn’t work out.”

This new unwillingness of the female gender to accommodate male wishes has come as a shock to many would-be grooms conditioned by the traditional matrimonial equation.
Firstly, more and more women, much like men, are devoting their twenties solely to their careers, and entering the marriage market later than what used to be the ‘median age’ — at 28-30 rather than 24-26. By this time, they are financially independent, and have tasted the freedom that comes with singlehood in a big city. They are also independent-minded and no longer willing to make the kind of compromises they would have made a decade ago just to get married. The Indian groom who hasn’t yet come to grips with this transformation will not pass muster in the eyes of these confident, single women.

Secondly, in the arranged marriage scenario, parents of a ‘boy’ who is 31-32 would be looking for a girl who is four or five years younger, that is, 26-27 years old. But most eligible girls in this age group are busy building their careers, and are off the marriage market.

Saha can speak from experience. “Most of the girls I am meeting are above 30,” he says. “I have female colleagues in my own office who’re just as focused on their careers as the men and don’t mind taking on motherhood in their late 30s.”

Smita Mitra, 28, a media professional living alone in Mumbai for the past three years, values her independence. Says Mitra, “The kind of freedom you enjoy as a single woman is a very liberating experience. My life is under my control.” So, will she surrender the freedom of her singlehood if she meets the right man? “Men in India haven’t enjoyed any sudden burst of freedom as women have — they have always had the freedom that Indian women have discovered only recently. So, if a man I like wants to marry me, I’ll first talk to him about what marriage means for him,” says Mitra.

Most men she meets have also not altered their expectations from women, especially when it comes to marriage. “A young woman getting a job and living all alone is not taboo anymore in Indian society. But the thinking of most Indian men hasn’t evolved to the same level. They are suddenly meeting more assertive women and they are not sure how to deal with them. They are still in the earlier paradigm where women were marrying for financial security.” Mitra says that for women like her who can support themselves, marriage is more for companionship than social obligations or security.

Bhagyashree Patwardhan, 34 and single, a Pune-based product designer, echoes Mitra’s views. “Girls now are brought up with much more freedom, ‘like a boy’, as they say. But boys are still brought up like boys. So in their mind, a woman still needs to be in a certain way. More girls prefer to remain single rather than take bullshit from such men.”

Every single woman this reporter spoke to agreed that the independence that comes with living alone changes the attitude of women towards matrimony. “You get the freedom to explore who you are, and you do this in your late 20s,” says Bhagyashree. “When you are 22-23, there’s more peer pressure, you’re still trying to understand what’s going on, and you don’t have much money either. As you grow older, you have a better income, you can come and go as you please, you probably have a car at your disposal, and you are much more confident. Even when it comes to men, because you are more aware of who you are, it’s easier to deal with them. And it’s a beautiful feeling because you have never experienced it before. I think that’s what women like about their late 20s singlehood, and you can’t blame them for being choosy about the man for whom they would let go of all this.”

Rinita Sen, 26, a lawyer who is enjoying all the pleasures of singlehood at the moment, couldn’t agree more. “It’s true that women are choosier today. I am a case in point. I want to get married, but there aren’t many men around who meet my expectations and criteria, which is why I’m single,” she says. What kind of criteria?

Sen elaborates, “For example, I am clear I won’t live with my in-laws. Earlier, women may have compromised on this issue, but it is less likely today. Another criterion for me is the mentality of the man towards other people. I am liberal-minded, and if I see that my partner looks down upon certain communities, out he goes, and these are some aspects of my ‘choosiness’. Basically, I wouldn’t want to compromise with what I have grown up with in terms of my values and morals just to fit into somebody else’s scheme of things.”

Such choosiness is evident across genders. Richard Peters, 32, an independent TV producer in Mumbai, is single by default, for this very reason. “I don’t want to be single forever, but I need to find the right person,” he says. And what is his idea of the ‘right person’? “A woman who gives me my own space. I don’t want to change a thing in my life, especially my work schedules and party time, just because I’m married to someone.” But how do you expect to be in a relationship if you won’t make any compromises? “That’s probably why I am still single,” smiles Peters.

Attitudinal issues cut both ways. “I was just telling my mom, who is still hunting for a groom for me, that we are both equally comfortable wearing a sari here, and when in Goa, wearing a bikini. That’s what today’s women are. But today’s men are not ready to accept that. I have friends who would not want their wives to wear a bikini; they tell them to wear a costume or something. Why? It’s a centuries-old conditioning at play,” says Bhagyashree.

All this makes the project of finding a life partner a rather fraught endeavour. “I have a good job, designation, salary, background in education. But the fact remains that I am still single,” Saha observes. “All your professional achievements fall flat after some time. You might be doing great in your career, but if you can’t come back and share your day’s thoughts with somebody, then it’s pointless. I also think loneliness strikes a lot of people who are in this age group; you do want someone in your life who you can relate to at an intimate level. My friends can’t believe that I have got many rejections. But I don’t want to rush into a marriage just for the heck of it. The question is: how long are you prepared to wait for the right person? That bothers me, honestly,” admits Saha.