It’s not just medical ailments that pose a problems in finding a suitable match. Being a divorcee doesn’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 www.secondshaadi.com. “There, I felt at home, among my own community. I didn’t have to tell anyone that I am not a monster,” 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. “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,” 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 — idontwantdowry.com.

“All marriage searches begin with specifications of caste, religion, height, weight etc. Money matters come in last. Idontwantdowry.com takes a reverse route,” 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 sister’s marriage. Neither does he want any for himself. “I won’t take a single paisa from my in-laws,” he says. His parents don’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 — a fellow engineer with IBM — through the site.

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