In India, Classified Matrimonial Advertisements is a particularly important source of revenue for all newspapers. All Sunday issues will have a few pages dedicated to this one area. Here is a sample of a page in our Hindustan Times.
Ranjan and I were sitting and having a man to man chat last evening when Ranjan received a phone call from one of his friends who was trying to help a foreigner decipher some Punjabi matrimonial ads. Ranjan was asked as to what NM at the end of such ads meant and I was asked as he did not know. I did not either and I rang up the only Punjabi friend that I could think of Teji and asked him the same and I was promptly told that it stood for Non Mangalik. When I shared this information with Ranjan’s friend, he wanted to know more about Mangala Dosha and I had to explain that too.
Phew!
A while later, we received another call asking what DU stood for and this one was easy. It was to indicate that the bride or the groom obtained a degree from the Delhi University as opposed to the less preferred universities of the Punjab.
Phew, again!
And then, as my synchronicity does repeatedly, I was drawn to this story in the New York Times. Please read it fully and the video is exceptionally good too.