Malaysiakini (Kuala Lumpur) - August 1, 2001
India's software young bloods no longer such a good catch Jay Shankar
11:56am, Wed: BANGALORE Aug 1 (AFP) - Software engineer B Prakyath has trawled through an exhaustive list of 110 prospective brides in the past 10 months, but the sound of wedding bells remain as distant as ever.
The 25-year-old software developer with HCL Perot Systems in India's IT capital, Bangalore, is just one of thousands of young male software engineer who have seen their standing in India's job-conscious marriage market nosedive in recent months.
Considered a prime catch just one year ago, software professionals are now strictly second division material, behind perennial stand-bys like chartered accountants.
"It is a depressing scenario," said Prakyath, who finally approached a marriage bureau to help him select a bride.
"For the last 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 said.
Search continues
"But I am not giving up hope and am still continuing the search."
A global slowdown has forced technology companies in the United States and India to lay-off staff and freeze recruitment.
Many Indian software engineers who earned 70,000 rupees (US$1,520) a month in the US have returned home, futher saturating the domestic IT job market.
"People are gradually losing their confidence in the IT sector," said TG Shivraj, chief of Computer Audio-Visual Aided Matrimonial Bureau, which has more than 500 IT professionals on its books.
"The parents of the bride are worried. They think there is no future in IT now. So they are delaying their proposals," said Shivraj, who opened his bureau 11 years ago and clocks an annual turnover of 10 million rupees.
"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 said.
Good-looking girl
J Rajshekar, a 26-year-old software developer with a well-known car firm in Bangalore enrolled with Shivraj's bureau five months ago and initially got 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. But I found that none were willing because I was a software engineer," Rajshekar said.
He said his friends who had lost their jobs were stranded with debts, and many were not even able to pay back their car loans.
"They are out in the streets. I still have a job even though it will not take me to the US or pays me a huge salary. But the brides and parents are skeptical about IT now," Rajshekar said.
HCL Perot's Prakyath said the return of software engineers from overseas had had a major impact, as one of the main incentives for marriage was the opportunity to live abroad, especially in the United States.
"Out of 100 software engineers me and my friends knew about, 85 are back in India, many of them with horror stories about the way they were treated," Prakyath said.
"I think the worst impact is being felt by the fresh engineering graduates.
They have spent heavily on their education in private engineering colleges, only to face a situation where there are no jobs.
"Now brides refusing to marry software engineers will only add to their troubles," he said.