India's brides snub software geeks

By staff and wire reports

BANGALORE, India -- Considered a prime catch just a year ago, software professionals now are strictly second-division material, behind perennial stand-bys like chartered accountants.

A global slowdown has forced tech firms to lay off staff and freeze recruitment.

Many Indian software engineers who earned $1,500 a month in the U.S. have returned home.

And for software engineers like B. Prakyath, the sound of wedding bells remains as distant as ever.

'Not giving up hope'

"It is a depressing scenario," says Prakyath, who finally approached a marriage bureau to help him select a bride.

"For the past three or four months I have seen the majority of parents hesitating to marry off their daughters to a software engineer as they are not sure whether we will have our jobs next year," he says.

"But I am not giving up hope and am still continuing the search."

T.G. Shivraj, chief of Computer Audio-Visual Aided Matrimonial Bureau, says Indians are losing their confidence in the high tech sector.

"The parents of the bride are worried. They think there is no future in IT now. So they are delaying their proposals," says Shivraj, who opened his bureau 11 years ago and has an annual turnover of $212,000.

"Previously the IT sector was hot. Now brides are shifting to management guys, chartered accountants and company secretaries."

"Indian brides look at the status of the person, secure jobs, property and the boy's family," he adds.

Skeptical brides

J. Rajshekar, a 26-year-old software developer with a leading car firm in Bangalore, enrolled with Shivraj's bureau five months ago and had 150 matches from the firm's computer.

"My aim was to look for a graduate and good-looking girl with a decent family background. So I pruned the list to 30 prospective brides," says Rajshekar.

"But I found that none were willing because I was a software engineer."

Rajshekar says friends who lost their jobs were stranded with debts, and many were not able to pay back car loans.

"The are out in the streets. I still have a job even though it will not take me to the U.S. or pay me a huge salary. But the brides and parents are skeptical about IT now," says Rajshekar.

But one sign of confidence for India's IT world comes from the latest survey by research firm Gartner Inc, which sees the number of Internet users in India likely doubling to almost 8 million by the end of this year.

By the end of 2005, the number could reach a staggering 40 million, it said.