KNO for everyone

Positivesaathi.com, which went live six months ago, has 115 members8212;95 males, 20 females. The site has even fixed cross-continental matches. A Hyderabadi IT professional working at an MNC in Singapore and a British divorcee of Telugu origin she contracted the virus from her ex-husband after three months of marriage have decided to tie the knot, after a couple of e-mail exchanges and telephonic conversations.

Anil Kumar Valiv, a Maharshtra government officer who single-handedly founded the site with just Rs 30,000, has dedicated the venture to an HIV positive bachelor friend who passed away last year. Valiv says, 8220;Though NGOs and some marriage bureaus do hold swayamvars for HIV infected people, they have poor attendance as those who are infected fear coming out in the open. A website provides the required anonymity.8221;

The Indian matrimonial business saw a revolution with websites such as shaadi.com and bharatmatrimony.com. These websites have made finding a partner just a matter of 8216;clicking8217; it right. The websites boast of over eight lakh success stories each. But this revolution did leave out people for whom conventional match-making methods do not apply, and this is where niche sites such as positivesaathi.com come into action.

It is not just a life-threatening medical condition that could keep you from finding a spouse, even a common lifestyle disorder such as diabetes could be a huge hindrance in finding a match. Chander Malhotra, a 30-year-old mobile repair shop owner in Delhi, has been living with Type 1 diabetes since birth a Type 1 diabetic8217;s body produces no insulin and the patient has to live on insulin shots through life and found it difficult to find the right partner. He was apprehensive about a girl8217;s reaction to his daily routine of injections and his dependence on them.

It was his doctor Ashok Jhingan who 8220;prescribed8221; a visit to diabeticmatrimony.com. Chander was already registered on mainstream matrimonial portals, but it was this site where he did not have to 8220;educate8221; people on his condition. Within few months, he found his wife, Priya, also a Type 1 diabetic, on the portal. An initiative of the Delhi Diabetes Research Centre, Diabeticmatrimony.com has 294 profiles 74 women, 160 men. The site flashes pictures of Type 1 diabetic celebs such as cricketer Wasim Akram, VJ Gaurav Kapoor and actor Kamal Hasan, obviously to encourage common diabetics and educate non-diabetics.

It8217;s not just medical ailments that pose a problems in finding a suitable match. Being a divorcee doesn8217;t help either. Inderbir Singh, 34, MBA, entrepreneur and a divorcee deleted his profile on a mainstream matrimonial portal after a string of rejections. So, he logged onto secondshaadi.com. 8220;There, I felt at home, among my own community. I didn8217;t have to tell anyone that I am not a monster,8221; says Singh, whose two-year marriage ended last year. He is now engaged to a 32-year-old fashion designer who divorced after a seven-year-marriage and whom he met four months after registering on secondshaadi.com. Ankur Warikoo and Vivek Pahwa, Indian School of Business alumni, launched the site after they realised that the number of divorcees is set to rise. 8220;India has one of the lowest divorce rates in the world at one per cent but sociologists say that the number of divorces in metros has risen by 500 to 600 per cent in the last five years,8221; says Warikoo.

And if perceived monsters such as divorcees have it tough, so do upfront saints such as dowry-haters. Yep, there is a site for them too 8212; idontwantdowry.com.

8220;All marriage searches begin with specifications of caste, religion, height, weight etc. Money matters come in last. Idontwantdowry.com takes a reverse route,8221; says Satya Naresh, founder of the site, which has more men 4,419 than women 2,568 members. Sreehari Babu, 29, software engineer with Tech Mahindra in Bangalore, refuses to cough up dowry for his sister8217;s marriage. Neither does he want any for himself. 8220;I won8217;t take a single paisa from my in-laws,8221; he says. His parents don8217;t agree with him though. Without their knowledge, Babu has joined idontwantdowry.com. He learnt about the website from his friend, an engineer with Hyderabad-based IT firm App Labs, who found her match 8212; a fellow engineer with IBM 8212; through the site.

People may get progressive enough to junk dowry but they may still be uncomfortable with the idea of their spouses working at odd hours, specially when they themselves are in a comfy 9-5 job. That8217;s what drove Neha Grover, a customer care executive with Gurgaon-based BPO to register on bposhaadi.com. 8220;Instead of living with a man who8217;d nag me with questions about my shifts, I8217;d rather marry someone in the same profession,8221; says Grover. Thanks to the site, she is now married to Tarun Sharma, also a BPO employee. Neha could have found her spouse on generic sites that enlist profession as a search criterion. But Sanjeev Pahwa, CEO, StrikeOne Ads, the firm that runs bposhaadi.com and other self explanatory sites such as govtshaadi.com, thirtyplusshaadi.com and mncshaadi.com says, 8220;People don8217;t want to spend 15 minutes to search for a spouse. They might as well spend five minutes by logging onto a focussed site.8221;