Telugu Marriage Market: NRIs No Longer in Demand

Once upon a time the NRI title used to have a certain importance and dignity in India. With a major portion of the Telugu community opting for jobs outside India, the marriage market has become saturated and the demands from bridal families have increased.

Now, the families demand that the groom should have a land of their own in India in addition to a stable job with a five-figure salary. K. Abhishek Adhiraj, a 34-year-old living in Brisbane, told the media about his multiple marriage proposal rejections on account of not having generational wealth or assets in his homeland.

Despite coming from a poor family, Adhiraj completed his master’s in data science and landed a job in a tech giant. However, still failed to find an ideal match back home.

One of the reasons behind this is that the parents want the groom to have some possessions to fall back on in case of emergency, especially considering the lack of job security in recent times. The only exception to this is a Green Card holder that trumps all other requirements.

A Telugu marriage bureau disclosed that the number of monthly matches for NRIs has gone down from 18-20 a decade ago to 10-12 now. Indian brides and their parents used to actively look for an NRI to get their daughters married into a well-to-do family but alas this is not the case anymore.