What are my chances of finding love? Let's do the math
“I have clearly told my son, you can be friends with whomsoever you want, but you have to marry a girl from our community only,” said a lady in her 40s; it was a community get-together, and just like any other get-together, gossip mills were buzzing.
Kudos to a family friend’s son who married outside his community and was reason for our moms to fear that, just like him, we too might bring shame on their name.
To which one cousin exclaimed: “Here in mechanical engineering, we are giving blood and sweat to impress a girl; where there are four girls for 130 lads, do you expect to filter those girls through community!” All we could do was laugh.
What if I find the love of my life in my community with a similar economic background and education. What are the odds??
From roughly 7 billion people on the planet, we’d say 3.5 billion belong to the female gender. Being an Indian, I would probably have to look out for an Indian (culture, society and cricket team-related issues).
So for 1.2 billion Indians, for the sake of simplicity we’d say there are 0.6 billion females. Of these, the unmarried would be 40 per cent, so the figure comes to 24 crore. Quite a sizable number.
Of these 24 crore women/girls, let's filter those whose age is 0-5 years less than mine. (Me being younger to my female counterpart would make her dominant! Courtesy: society).
Since I am 24, I can choose women aged 19 to 24 (though 19-20 is quite bizarre). So, proportionately, a guy of 24 will have 5 crore girls within the 19-24 age group to pick as girlfriend.
But, well, the real siyappa begins now! These 5 crore girls belong to 29 states and six Union Territories - any family would of course prefer an internal or nearby source (so as to avoid logistics cost!)
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| The expense of taking your relatives to Kashmir to marry your son, while you are from Kanyakumari, won't be a cool option. (Photo credit: India Today) |
The expense of taking your relatives to Kashmir to marry your son, while you are from Kanyakumari won't be a cool option. Fine, so two-three neighbouring states would do. So, we come down to three states from 29. So from 5 crore, the figure reduces to 50 lakh women.
According to the society, a similar, a pinch lower, and infinitely higher economic status are the only acceptable backgrounds for the selection of a bride.
Belonging to a middle-class family, criteria might filter it only to 50 per cent. Fine, now 25 lakh girls fulfil the criteria of age, place of living and economic status. But then, happy endings are for movies.
Among these 25 lakh beautiful girls, there comes another filter, a major one - religion. Being in a minority with say 10 per cent demography. Let’s cut the figure to 2.5 lakh.
And yes there are sub-castes too. So, the criteria of main caste and sub-caste needs to be fulfilled. Let’s take demography of this criteria at 20 per cent. That brings the figure down to 50,000.
So this will do. Right? Well, picture abhi baki hai mere dost.
Of these 50,000 beautiful girls, a mandatory data match for skin tone (A BRIGHTER tone than yours is the only option.) That can take the figure down to 10,000. (I better stop using Fair & Handsome.)
Of these 10,000, another separator would be education. For a guy going for major degrees or already having landed a plush job, someone with almost similar stature (though never a better degree or better paying job: courtesy society) would do. So, the figure really comes down to a dearer one, say 1,000.
So, yes, me being a 24-year-old guy, there are 1,000 girls with whom I can fall in love and who will get authorised by my parents.
But there are 1,000 girls against 1,050 guys! Also, disbursed in three states which might have roughly 300 cities. So, around 10 girls in my city.
Yes, my city where the population can be around 10 lakh, I need to find one of those 10 girls for "authorised love".
Leave aside character, interests, compatibility - no one gives a damn about that!