Today while checking my Yahoo Email account I came across this classic piece of advertising.
The ad as you can see is for a matrimonial site (www.bharatmatrimony.com). It screams out for the ATTENTION of NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) and their immediate family like a vendor in a fish market trying to attract customers to his stall.
They use a set of lines to describe (I think) some of the qualities of the females you'd find on the site.
Let me reproduce those lines here:
Line 1: She loves her steaks rare.
- Lady I sure do hope those are rare non-beef stakes.. because most Hindu guys and girls (even outside India) do not eat beef especially not RARE beef.
Line 2: She dances a mean tango.
- Kind of like J-Lo or Vanessa Williams I hope?
Line 3: She has a mutt called Bob.
- Er.. then you are all set for all kinds of kinky bedroom games ;).
Line 4: She's watched DDLJ sixteen times.
- obsessive compulsive? Or just doesn't have any money to rent new movies? Whatever the reason.. she must surely be occupying a padded cell in some asylum after watching DDLJ sixteen times!
Line 5: And she paints rocks!
- what can I say.. she paints rocks too!
Meet your match today! (this sounds like an invitation for a wrestling match)
Anyway... was really surprised to see these kinds of ads being thrown at NRIs (who are basically first generation Indians settled abroad). I could understand second generation Indians (people of Indian origin born and bought up outside India) finding this to their liking. But NRIs? It defies logic.
This shows that they have not done their research properly before taking out an ad like this.
Most NRIs (which includes a large number of students) are surprisingly conservative when it comes to marriage. While they may have multiple girlfriends (age/skin colour no bar!) marriage is always seen as something you do with your head rather than you know what. Consent of elders is, even if in many cases a mere formality, important.
Also I had thought NRIs were now being recognized for what they really are.
Earlier NRIs were thought to be like stars at night, living in their own nice world and coming down to Earth now and then for a quick visit. People who were the fortunate representatives, on a foreign shore, of a billion strong nation.
In reality an NRI is in the worst possible position. He is more like the soldier sitting in the trench at the frontline, hoping that his sacrifice will make things easier for people back home. People will say life outside India is easy. I agree 100% but at what cost do we get this 'easy life'. This is a very debatable topic.
This kind of targeting of specific groups (especially NRIs) is quite widespread. From Banks to Matrimony sites. While these sites do provide some good services, yet they do harm the cause of NRIs in the long run. When you consider a group of people to be separate, then you also attach certain assumptions to them. The same way all people belonging to SC/ST are not poor, all NRIs are not as successful as they seem.
Allow NRIs to show you their failures too. Do not burden them with the responsibility to perform every time. It has lead to the spoiling of one too many a life.
