Dating Help Arrives For Lonely NZ Indians

Mon, 14 Feb 2005

New Matchmaking Service Set Up To Help Single Indian New Zealanders Find A Suitable Match

As New Zealanders’ love affair with online dating soars, a Wellington couple has set up a web-based matchmaking service to help Indian singles meet each other.

With tens of thousands of New Zealanders now registered for these online services (NZDating alone has more than 100,000 members), Sanj and Anushka Bajaj decided to meet a gap in the dating market for Indian New Zealanders and will launch Jind Indian Introduction Agency and its website, www.jind.co.nz, today on Valentine’s Day.

“We had heard many conservations where our single Indian friends talked about these sites, how their friend, workmate or an acquaintance has met someone special by joining one.” Website developer and Jind Ltd director Sanj Bajaj said. “Many of these people went on to express the wish that there was a similar service where like-minded Indian singles could meet.”

“After listening to many such conversations and realising that there was a huge interest in such a service, we decided to do something about it.”

Many conversations later, and following many months of research and development, the couple have come up with a service that takes the concept of Internet dating much further and caters to the special needs of Indian New Zealanders.

In meeting these needs, Jind had to come up with a concept that would accommodate Indian cultural sensitivities and also reflect the modern attitudes and lifestyles of Indian New Zealanders.

The result is not your average online dating site, where registered users generally post their profiles on an anonymous basis, view and select potential partners from listed profiles and contact each other by email via the website.

What sets it apart from other online dating sites is that Jind offers a personalised service run by people who understand the needs of Indian singles and who are passionate about helping people make the right matches. Another key difference is that it introduces Indian singles specifically for marriage by providing a modern alternative to arranged marriages.

Unlike many online dating services, Jind also provides a screening service that takes the hard work out of sifting through potential dates, makes dating safer and increases the chances of success.

Sanj and Anushka are well qualified to understand the needs of their clients. They have both been bought up in different Western countries - he in New Zealand and she in England – and both been through the traditional arranged marriage process - as have many of their relatives.

These experiences led them to conclude that the process generally produces a low success rate as it is not always suited to the needs of overseas-based Indians.

Luckily for Sanj and Anushka, they went on to meet each other thanks to an informal introduction from a mutual friend. No arranged marriage, just two people getting to know each other by themselves.

By contrast, the arranged marriage process usually involves parents making the customary ‘marriage trip(s)’ to India or another home country, placing ads in newspaper matrimonial columns or on a web-based dating service and ‘putting the word out’ with relatives living back home.

“The problem is that Indians brought up in New Zealand or Australia have different ideas and social habits from their peers back home, not to mention the geographical distance from home,” Sanj says. “For example, many Indians in India and abroad are no longer that keen to move to New Zealand or Australia.

“We believe that by matching Indian couples in New Zealand and Australia the success rate is likely to be higher,” he says. “This way we are able to introduce people from similar backgrounds and culture who have more in common with each other.

“We think it will be much easier for our clients in Australia and New Zealand to communicate with someone who is based in their own country or close by across the Tasman.”

The Jind website is designed to make it easy for applicants to access its services. People can apply to register with Jind by simply requesting an application pack on this website.

Sanj is an experienced website developer and was a member of the award-winning team that won the ‘best government site’ award at last year’ s NetGuide Web Awards for their work on the new Wellington City Council website.

The name Jind is inspired by Punjabi love songs, where the phrase ‘jind mahi’ (meaning ‘love of my life’) often features in lyrics.

For further information please visit www.jind.co.nz

ENDS

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