(Pic Courtesy: Outlook India)
Oh snoopers of the world UNITE! I was always told that if you snoop around–you would never find anything nice. It’s a great thought, but that hasn’t stopped me from being sneaky–snooping around without a care in the world, facebook stalking, email checking, and being alarmingly insouciant about the things that I find.
While I snoop for pleasure, a recent article in Indian magazine Outlook had an (unintentionally) hilarious piece about more and more Indians employing private detectives to snoop on potential partners. It’s like “Mumbai PI ” minus the moustaches! By now, the whole world and its aunt knows about our ancient tradition of arranged marriages, where eligible girls are sent on blind dates by their parents with suitable boys. The couple, usually, bond over a cup of coffee and traipse back to their folks to report on the date. If they like each other, they eventually end up getting married. So far, millions of couples have married into this system–often with great success and enduring love and respect for each other.
But now, because we are a shabby generation–spending time endlessly on the internet or wasting away in a movie hall watching Bollywood movies, our standards have changed. For a lot of youngsters opting for the arranged marriage route (not everyone in India has an arranged marriage, it’s perfectly normal to marry your boyfriend or girlfriend), their expectations of a partner have changed. When, once upon a time, it was more than enough to hope for a guy with a decent family and job, these days the criteria has been expanded to include what brands a person wears, where he/she lives and who they hang out with–things that a person would normally find out if they went out on a couple of dates with the potential partner. But, because the norms of arranged marriages don’t really allow for that–Outlook reports that families are employing private detectives to conduct background checks.
- Phone records, pay slips, credit history and medical records are dug out
- Household help, dhobhi, kirana store owners are discreetly quizzed for ‘character verification’
- Relatives, family members, friends may be questioned undercover to confirm family background
- Spycams are used in extreme cases, and if the client demands hard evidence
- Most frequently, clients want to know the prospective groom/ bride’s job profile, financial status, family reputation, lifestyle habits, sexual preferences, medical history, previous marriages if any, whether they’re having an affair
For a fee of Rs. 15,000-25,000 ( from $350 to less than $500), you can get your own PI. According to Outlook, the PI will snoop and report back on anything that is burning in the client’s mind. Is he in a relationship with another woman? Or worse, a man? Is he impotent? Does he live well enough for my needs? Is he only after me for my Canadian citizenship? Will she be able to adjust to our ‘lifestyle and culture’? Does she drink? Has she lost her virginity? Does the family have a history of dowry harassment?
Fair enough. After all, it is a leap of faith to randomnly marry someone you’ve just met. While, I am sure that the PIs ( the “snoopers”) do a great job on getting the stats on the number of friends the potential partner ( who shall, henceforth, be referred to as the “Snoopee”) has and the status of the family, I wonder how one really finds out if the snoopee is impotent or is a virgin! Hmmm. Maybe the Snooper sleeps with the Snoopee. And then, presents the evidence.
Oh, thousand-year-old tradition–how you have been besmirched!
