Not between IIT&IIM

How to snag a IIT-IIM husband: The definitive guide for the ambitious Indian girls; definitely not for feminists

Now no one said being a woman in India is an easy job. And if you are a woman who wants to get married and think that romance is defined by Yash Raj movies featuring Shahrukh Khan in coloured sweaters, then you’re in serious trouble. No, even ‘Fair and Lovely’ can’t fix your life. So if you’re moping at every Facebook update that shows a friend and her better half on a south east Asian beach in floral shorts and then in a Bangkok’s night bazaar in candy coloured chappals, we understand your pain.

But chin up, you’re not alone in this trial. Ask Ajay Gupta. He has a gaggle of nephews, all of them men with resumes that send average Indian mothers into happy reveries, also possibly men who can buy you those flourescent floaters from Nike if they wanted to, but are yet to find a honeymoon picture-friendly person. Just like you.

Gupta, being an enterprising gentleman familiar with the great Indian tradition of ‘jugaad’, decided to come to their rescue. So he started a website meant for these sought after yet much-misunderstood men of the country. Now you might think we are talking about Chetan Bhagat. But, no. We are talking about his brothers from other batches in IIT and IIMs, who have failed to find Ms Right, despite those CVs that immediately slot the rest of the country in the same category of importance that body hair occupies in Aamir Khan’s life right now.

So, Gupta started iitiimshaadi.com, catered exclusively for eligible young men, from premier institutes in the country. This website, claims its founder, will find them a life. In the way of a wife. Assuming that many, many women will be willing to make these young gentlemen’s lives easier, we have come up with a definitive guide that will help you make your mother proud, increase your Facebook profile’s net worth and counter each picture of ‘Koh Samui’ you were bombarded with ten of your own. Hah!

So ladies, after elaborately analysing Gupta’s words of wisdom, hold your breath, we’ve come up with a definitive guide to land the perfect eight-digit salary man.

First, throw chauvinism out of your dictionary. Pretend, like Kumar Gaurav, it never existed in your life. Because see, the site is simply not for the mere intellectual mortals - the ones with an MA or a humanities degree. (Oh come on, you don’t want to shop on Colaba causeway for your honeymoon, do you know?) But it remains fairly indulgent for women.

We checked, it will allow a woman with a humanities degree to log in, if she comes from a college they approve of. Now, if you’re miffed, don’t be. Gupta tells Wall Street Journal that there’s nothing ‘chauvinistic’ about the site which has lowered the education qualifications for women to provide more ‘choices’ to men. “It is not a chauvinistic discrimination, but some highly-educated men, in terms of practicality, like women who also consider taking care of the home a task as good as a job,” he says.

Now, it’s no secret that the smartest of these Indian men are outwitted by the desi bai. You can’t blame a man who eats gallons of vegetable oil for dinner to want to marry someone who manages a bai better - force her to cook real food as opposed to imaginary edibles swimming in oil, make sure the undersides of the beds haven't turned into roach nurseries and intimidate her enough for her to turn up on national holidays.

If you are signing up for the site, you probably already feel deep inside your heart, that feminists are just lazy bums who won’t wax or shave. So that’s one small issue automatically out of the way.

Start watching TV news debates. Regularly. Preferably Arnab Goswam i’s panelists who look into a camera, smile, twiddle their thumbs and presumably also go back without bruised ear drums or sleep disorders. Forget all the gas about pranayam, a TV news panelist is your guide to de-ego yourself. Now, don’t worry if it scrapes a little self respect away with it. The latter is anyway a great hindrance while dealing with the particularly truant dhobi. Or the neighbour whose dog has mistaken your new car for its loo.

Because, one of the reasons that Gupta says, this site was launched was because he found that these men in high pressure jobs couldn’t find someone who was compatible intellectually and someone who would also understand the demands of a high pressure job.

Which means, they are committed to the cause of not leaving the couch for an entire weekend when there’s a cricket match on TV. And would prefer minimum resistance to that scheme of life. “They were looking for intellectual compatibility, but at the same time wanted women who would understand their hectic lives and dedicate more time to the house — while doing some part-time work,” says Gupta.

Now, don’t believe this Bollywood trash. These young men obviously don’t like a wet towel on the couch, the magazines burying the TV remote on the centre table and nothing in the pantry to munch on and drown panic in when Ishant Sharma is bowling. The house, like the job and the TV, needs time - who better than a nice woman who loves her relationship with Facebook like he does the one with his TV?

Finally, stop following Ellen DeGeneres’ videos. Stop flipping channels when Madhuri Dixit feeds her fake family Oats Maggi, or some woman makes a breakfast worthy of a Tamil wedding feast or some other woman cries tears of happiness having found the perfect washing powder for woollens. And try not snapping at people when someone doesn't get a obvious word during a game of Taboo. Or secretly resenting the friend who can't even enact dil while playing Dumb Charades. Because, our boys don't like too much competition.

Gupta tells, “The reason for this is that men usually are not very particular about the educational qualifications of their partner. Some might not want too much competition with their spouse, some prefer to have a wife who stays at home and according to our survey, most men wouldn’t mind marrying someone with just a basic degree.”

So if you have a ‘basic’ degree, you can’t get away with looking not alarmingly clever for the boys. But if you do, play at least one game of taboo everyday where you don’t scream at more than one person. Or try not snapping at aunties on local trains who threaten to throw you out of the compartment just because that’s just a small casualty in view of the great achievement that’s getting off the train, first.

And if you ever hear the word feminism around you, shudder as though you’ve read that as Ebola.