Competition Ke Side Effects: Newspaper Matrimonials Step Up Game

Newspaper matrimonials are adapting to keep up with an increasingly digital world – but with limited success.

PQM, PQSM, KKB, PQG, M/NM, PGT, LPA, BHP, DME, SM4.

No, this is not an excerpt from a teenager’s chat history or a government report. These acronyms belong to that odd little newspaper section you habitually toss aside until, one day, you find yourself on the other side of twenty-five and it is brandished in your face by parents and well-meaning relatives. This is the matrimonial ads page.

The proliferation of matrimonial websites has ensured that India is spoilt for choice. These websites not only enlarge the pool of prospective partners, they also provide, through features like videos and photos, a more comprehensive matchmaking experience. Further, by roping in youth icons like writer Chetan Bhagat and comedians like Kanan Gill and All India Bakchod, they increase their appeal for the young.

This competition, combined with progressive movements for social change regarding the discourses of caste and gender, has forced newspapers’ matrimonial pages to up their game. Some of the changes you will find turning these pages on an idle Sunday morning are:

Acronyms Everywhere

The coded language one finds in matrimonials serves two purposes – it maximises ad real estate, giving you more bang for your buck, and it gives this quaint, Barjatya-esque practice a degree of contemporaneity.

Deciphering some of these matrimonials now is an exercise in amateur cryptography, one that almost requires that the Mission Impossible theme be played in the background while you decode the true meaning of “PQM4 Sriv NM MCA wkg MNC.”

Issued in public interest, therefore, here are the full forms of some of the most common codes:

PQM - Professionally Qualified Match
M/NM - Manglik/Non-Manglik
SRIV - Srivastava
PQG - Professionally Qualified Gentleman
BHP - Bio-data, Horoscope, Photo

Emphasis on the Girl’s Professional Status Rather Than Her Father’s

This is definitely one of the more welcome changes. The feminist wave, though it has only just begun to enter popular culture in India, has at least ensured that there are some conversations we just cannot avoid anymore. The right of women to have professional lives separate from their expected domestic roles is being recognised by the mainstream and this is reflected in matrimonials, usually the bastions of regressive traditionalism.

Therefore, the emphasis in ads seeking grooms has shifted from the girl’s paternal pedigree to her own professional qualifications. Within these pages then, you will now find graphic designers, social media experts, college professors, MBA holders, etc. These improvements are admittedly incremental and limited to the middle and upper middle classes, but small victories must be celebrated too.

Archaic Forms of Discrimination Hold; Being Manglik Is Still an Issue

Amidst all these changes, some age-old prejudices still persist. It is the oddest thing to find categories like ‘Cosmopolitan’ and ‘Second Marriage’ nestled alongside ‘Manglik’. But, we are a country of uncomfortable contradictions, stuck in time and space one moment and leaping into future the next.

In Hinduism, a manglik is a person born under certain astrological conditions that render them unfit as a matrimonial match for ‘non-mangliks’. The stigma this term carries is evident in the fact that it has its own category, right next to ‘Disabled’. The systematic marginalisation of these demographics is blindly reproduced in print.

It is tempting to end with a rousing call to action to abolish these ads and to dismiss them as the crass commodification of marriage and the perpetuation of discriminatory practices. But, it needs to be said that matrimonials to this day offer a legitimate service and perhaps, it would be wiser to laud the progress made and look forward to more inclusivity.

So let’s end with the knowledge that we are now more familiar with our Sunday newspaper, and are better versed in matrimonial terminology.