Vikram Phadke, 34, software professional working in South California. coming to India in August.

Sahil Mehta, 29, engineer working in Alabama, coming to India on July 7, will return on July 22. Please hurry and contact immediately.

These are some of the matrimonial advertisements in a leading newspaper in the country. The post boxes of such advertisements are overflowing. With letters, mails and personal visits of the prospective bride’s parents, relatives and friends.

Ask youngsters if they would prefer a love marriage or an arranged one and you are mostly likely to get ‘love marriage’ as the answer. Most teenagers will tell you arranged marriage is old fashioned, orthodox and too conservative.

Says Neelima Khatri, 17, ‘I cannot imagine marrying a guy I have not dated.’ I will be unable to spend one week with the guy, forget life time.

‘Though my parents’ marriage was an arranged one, those were different times. I have to spend some months with the guy before tying the knot,’ she says. 

Yes, say best friends who have got married and who are insanely happy now. But the downside of this marriage is that such a couple could take each other for granted.

Sneha Wakalkar calls her love story as ‘most embarrassing’. Her husband Mahendra Mahale calls it very filmi. Snehal and Mahendra were neighbours and childhood friends. “We had stayed at each others place, eaten from the same plate and literally grown up together,” says Snehal.