Indian woman creates 'Marriage CV' after parents put her on dating site: 'Definitely not marriage material. Won’t grow long hair, ever'

The attention given to the 'CV' comes in the wake of claims made by a convicted Indian rapist who claimed that women were responsible for the crime

Jamie Campbell
Friday 06 March 2015 12:26 GMT
Comments
Indhuja Pillai says she had posted the 'CV' to scare away potential grooms
Indhuja Pillai says she had posted the 'CV' to scare away potential grooms

An Indian woman who uploaded a brutally honest ‘Marriage CV’ has been widely praised for issuing a war cry on behalf of young Indian women against parentally organised arranged marriages.

Indhuja Pillai’s parents created a profile on a dating website for their daughter in order to help the 23-year-old find a husband.

However Ms. Pillai, from Bangalore, felt that the profile airbrushed her real personality and has extolled for the candour of her own self-description that she uploaded to her own website in response:

“I wear glasses and look dorky in them. Not a spendthrift or a shopaholic. Detest masala & drama, not a TV fan. I don’t read.

“NOT a womanly woman. Definitely not marriage material. Won’t grow long hair, ever.”

She then went on to describe the kind of man that she would be looking for, stipulating that he should be “preferably bearded”, “passionate about seeing the world” and “able to hold a conversation for atleast 30 minutes.”

The post has received more than 250,000 views and led to at least 30 proposals of marriage.

Injhuja Pillai's 'Marriage CV' on her website

She told The Telegraph that she had posted it to scare away potential grooms because she has too many things she wants to do before marriage:

“I don’t do women’s things like go to the salon, polish my nails or wear womanly clothes. I like motorbikes, I want to do a 5,000 kilometre road trip. Even if I get married I wouldn’t want to settle down, we would just travel, I would want us to be wanderers and backpackers.”

Since the piece went viral, she has been inundated with messages from young women who share her outlook and feel inspired by her revolt.

“They say we’ll fight back with their parents and make them postpone their marriages. It’s really overwhelming to see people relate to this and connect it to a bigger problem.

It’s part of conservative Indian culture that a woman should not go out after dark and if you do you’re not considered to be a homely family.”

The CV emerged amid the outcry over the comments of one of the men sentenced to death for the 2012 gang rape and murder of a Delhi student who said that she was to blame for her own death.

Mukesh Singh said: “A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night.

"A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping are for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes.”

A survey by a Banglaore NGO this week found 87 per cent of college students agreed that women should accept a certain degree of violence and 51 per cent believed they should focus on housework a child raising.

Nilanjina Roy, a leading Indian feminist campaigner said the tide was slowing changing though: “This generation is standing up and saying maybe marriage is not for us and that messes with the older narratives that marriage is their destiny.”

She added, in relation to Ms Pillai, “I love this woman.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in