Browsing through TV channels this evening after a long time, I saw an ad for secondshaadi.com (alright, so it has been ages since I watched television, not counting peripheral vision soaps when I find myself in Chennai). Old woman, old man, young girl, small kid, each of them talks to someone off-screen, listen to me… Indian “culture” being what it is and all that, this website sounds like an interesting idea. For one, it starts off with expectations being practical and realistic – no fair, convent-educated, homely… And both partners know (hopefully) what they are looking for and why they are on that site.
I immediately hopped over to the site, and what do you know – they have pages devoted to tips to make the second marriage successful. Surely, the apprehension and uncertainty is much more. This article says that secondshaadi.com had 20000 registered users within four months of launch. The brain behind this, Vivek Pahwa says here, While 30 per cent of our registered users are woman, 58 per cent are from top seven Indian cities, 30 per cent from smaller cities and 12 per cent from overseas, showing all parts of the society are welcoming the idea. Especially women in smaller towns – for whom the “stigma” is possibly stronger. The article also mentions other niche websites – positiveshaadi.com for HIV positive people, and idontwantdowry.com.- which incidentally, has women who have registered – so a site for those who do not want to give or take dowry. Now to go check these sites out.
Most interesting, and even if it doesn’t work, it is a good start. Though, it is rather depressing that some people haven’t managed to do this even once. 🙂
I read about the website in UltraBrown, where they even had 2 of the ads. I especially loved the first ad which targets women. I think it’s great, just in terms of changing public perception about remarriage..