When 36-year-old Indian national Waheed Suleiman met his wife Saima Naz, a Pakistani national studying in Singapore, through a matrimony site five years back, it did not make news. With Sania Mirza marrying Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, however, interest in cross-border marriages appear to be on the rise if a recent survey conducted by matrimony portal Shaadi.com is any indication.
The survey reveals there’s a new-found “openness to finding a spouse across borders”. The survey, titled Love Across Boundaries, notes that 61 per cent of the members on Shaadi.com would not mind looking for a spouse in Pakistan.
Gourav Rakshit, business head, Shaadi.com, claims the portal researched location preferences indicated by the site’s 13 million registered alliance seekers. “We found that users are willing to consider proposals from neighboring countries and Pakistan tops the list of preferences.” Out of over 9,500 Shaadi.com members who participated in the survey, about 30 per cent expressed willingness in finding a spouse from Nepal, while 27 per cent were willing to looking for their soulmates in Sri Lanka. Close to 10 per cent of the respondents were open to the idea of finding partners from Bangladesh.
Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Bharat Matrimony, which operates Muslimmatrimony.com, argues, “Post-Sania Mirza’s marriage, it might spark an interest among users to look at cross-border marriages in the neighboring countries, besides just the NRI crowd in the US and UK.” Malik-Mirza is not the first high profile union between a Pakistani cricketer and Indian celebrity. Former batsman Mohsin Khan had married Bollywood starlet Reena Roy in the 1980s.
Shaadi.com also asked members their view on the Malik-Mirza wedding and 59 per cent saw it in a positive light and thought it would help bridge the distance between India and Pakistan.
