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If you’re a single man searching for a bride, you may be considering going to India to look for prospects. With a population of 1.2 billion, you’ll certainly find many eligible women there, but you’ll also have lots of competition, especially in places like Siyani, Gujarat. Mumbai-based Vivek Prakash, a photographer for Reuters, visited the village and was told by an elder that about 70 percent of the men were unmarried. Many years of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide have reduced the pool of marriageable women.
Prakash took photos of some of these men for his blog (http://tinyurl.com/6csyqxe) and managed to gather 40 of them for a group picture in the village centre. After the shoot, many of the men followed Prakash to the local chai stall. “I spent the next couple of hours entertaining a lot of questions and comments about the story I was doing,” he writes. “I was overwhelmed by the number of men who said they wanted to be married but just couldn’t be—some had been trying for as long as 20 years, since they were 15 years old.”
If you’re a single woman searching for a groom, you can find directions to Siyani here: www.Maps.Google.com
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? We would love to hear from you about Chai Time. If you have contributions, please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips and more.]
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VILLAGE OF ETERNAL BACHELORS
Compiled & partly written by MELVIN DURAI 
December 2011
If you’re a single man searching for a bride, you may be considering going to India to look for prospects. With a population of 1.2 billion, you’ll certainly find many eligible women there, but you’ll also have lots of competition, especially in places like Siyani, Gujarat. Mumbai-based Vivek Prakash, a photographer for Reuters, visited the village and was told by an elder that about 70 percent of the men were unmarried. Many years of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide have reduced the pool of marriageable women.Prakash took photos of some of these men for his blog (http://tinyurl.com/6csyqxe) and managed to gather 40 of them for a group picture in the village centre. After the shoot, many of the men followed Prakash to the local chai stall. “I spent the next couple of hours entertaining a lot of questions and comments about the story I was doing,” he writes. “I was overwhelmed by the number of men who said they wanted to be married but just couldn’t be—some had been trying for as long as 20 years, since they were 15 years old.”
If you’re a single woman searching for a groom, you can find directions to Siyani here: www.Maps.Google.com
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? We would love to hear from you about Chai Time. If you have contributions, please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips and more.]
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