What does it mean to look for love in Australia? Hundreds of Indian Australians today prefer to go to India in search of their life-partners. Sometimes they either seek help of marriage bureaus, or sometimes they register online at the match-making sites. Sometimes they advertise in newspapers or most often they seek the vast network of their family ties back home as they search for a companion.
With vast pool of young men and women, from a familiar cultural background and sensitivities, is it easy to look for a partner back home than find someone in Australia?
That’s what SBS Documentary – Untold Australia: Indian Wedding Race aims to find out.
The documentary follows Tarun Bajaj, a young banker from Melbourne, who wants to get hitched before his 30th birthday. “I have to get married. If I do not get married by 30, I would be considered as damaged goods,” says Tarun.
Source: SBS
But finding a companion hasn’t come easy to him. Tarun arrived in Australia as an international student almost a decade ago.
Now having established his career in Melbourne, Tarun is on a look-out for a partner who he feels ‘has to be family endorsed: dad-approved’.
Like Tarun, Sydney-based Sharat Ram, too went to India in search of a life-partner three years ago. He found his wife Sharaniya with the help of his parents and says that many people in Australia today, choose to seek help from their parents to look for a life partner.
He met his wife, Sharaniya in India and hardly spent time together before they got married. The couple, who got married two and half years ago, is now expecting their first child.
Source: Supplied
Sharat isn’t alone. There are many like him who visit India in search of a partner.
This time around Tarun is trying his luck. He has visited India, has signed up on the online match-making sites but feels that Indian brides are a bit reluctant to move abroad.
“I can give her…decent accommodation, clothing and cars to drive,” says Tarun. “But not what they usually get in India - maids, servants, huge term deposits and jewellery," he adds.
Sharat understands this point and adds that “People in India, they still like USA better than Australia. They have to think twice before they will consider Australia as an option…sometimes they have to think three or four times!”
“They don’t know as much about Australia, and in the past decade or so particularly, they are concerned about experiencing racism here.”
His advice to other young Indian Aussie who are looking for love?
“Whether you’re in India or Australia, you need to be open. You can’t be too fixed about what you want. It doesn’t work that way.”
“People in India have more opportunity to meet the types of people that they’re after.”
Untold Australia: Indian Wedding Race airs Wednesday 13 April on SBS.
