In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell's seminal book on the power of instinct, the author makes a compelling reference to speed-dating: "Speed-dating has become enormously popular around the world and it's not hard to understand why. It's the distillation of a date to a snap judgement. Everyone who sits down at one of those tables is trying to answer a very simple question: do I want to see this person again? And to answer that, we don't need an entire evening."

Yamini Gupte, a 25-year-old architect from Mumbai, agrees, "I'm big on first impressions. I know in the first 10-15 seconds whether I'm interested in the guy." Gupte, a tall, attractive woman of varied interests, is currently dating a 26-year-old entrepreneur she met at one of the speed-dating events in Mumbai a month ago. Speed-dating, a succession of 15-20 three-minute dates where the women are seated at separate tables for the evening and the men rotate from table to table, is becoming increasingly popular in Mumbai since it began on Valentine's Day this year. If both the woman and man tick "interested" on the list, the dating company swaps e-mail ids and the couple can take it from there. But belief in snap judgements is not the only reason why Gupte and a bunch of her friends signed up to speed-date. "We work 12-hour days, six days of the week. There's no time to meet interesting men," says Gupte.

DATING DEVICES

SPEED-DATING: A quick succession of 15-20 three-minute organised blind dates. SINGLES CLUB: Where single people get together for an evening. SMS DATING: Exchanging user ids through short codes. BLUETOOTH: Users can post and access profiles in a given area. INTERNET DATING: Viewing or posting profiles on dating portals. TV AND RADIO: Reality shows hunt for matches and fix dates.

Twenty-somethings in urban India are increasingly turning to organised dating forums like speed-dating events, singles nights, television and radio shows, dating portals and SMS dating to find a date. Technology, television and the fast life have dramatically altered the rules of the dating game, while long workdays and an aversion to arranged marriages mean it's even harder to find a mate. Add to that a floating work population and the influx of global trends and you see why dating companies like BombaySpeedD8 and 5minutesdate.com, channels like Play TV, shows like Channel [V]'s Agent Love and Go 92.5's Flirty at 7.30 on radio and websites like www.liv2luv.com and www.date.com are stepping in to play cupid (see box). Star World's Miss Match, where Alicia Silverstone in schizophrenic contrast plays divorce lawyer-cum-matchmaker, and Date Patrol on Discovery Travel and Living have only fuelled Indians' interest in matchmaking. Keeping this in mind, Channel 7 is planning to start a dating show.

"You just have to look at the rise in popularity of online dating. Speed-dating is just a natural extension of that," says Maha Khan, 25, UK-based lawyer who set up AsianspeedD8.com, the parent company of BombaySpeedD8, in England two years ago. Khan exported the concept to India in March this year and already 450 singles have registered with BombaySpeedD8.com. It will now organise events in Pune and Bangalore.

PICTURE SPEAK

UP-TO-DATE: Speed-dating in Mumbai

Changing attitudes is the most significant reason for the surge in organised dating forums. Not only is the Indian youth more open to casual dating, there are even instances of family accompanying a woman on a speed-date and friends gifting each other speed-dates. "Life is moving so fast that here-and-now hedonism has taken over," says Dr Harish Shetty, a Mumbai-based social psychiatrist.

But double standards exist. An increasing number of people are open to organised dating but prefer to keep their identities secret. Most people are shy of being photographed for a story on organised dating but they have no qualms about posting their profiles and photographs in cyberspace for prospective dates to view. Date.com, a website hosted at Miami Beach in Florida, US, is used by thousands of 18-35-year-old Indians not only from the metros but also small towns like Bhubaneswar and Vadodara. Interestingly, liv2luv.com, an Indiatimes venture, and Date.com have customised listings for each city and further segregated them into categories like Mumbai Muslims and Lucknow Christians. These websites also provide live chat sessions and dating advice. "I logged on to a dating site and found an interesting girl. After chatting for a month we met. She was sweet and smart but it did not work out as she was much older," says Sriram, 26, a Chennai-based businessman who models part-time. But "the search is on", says Sriram, who also frequents nightclubs in his quest.

FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT

Speeding Away There is such a thing as one degree of separation. On the eve of Valentine's Day, at the behest of a close friend and confidante, I found myself at a speed-dating event in a swish Mumbai lounge. I trudged into the venue comforting myself with the thought that I was only doing this as a journalistic experiment. What ensued was the discovery that in India's sprawling metropolises, the youthful, urbane, like-minded populace is such a piffling fraction that there are only a few who don't know each other. Like nine other women, I dressed in my Sunday best-smart blue jeans and a turquoise tank top-and waited on a low-slung couch for the event to begin. Women, between 25 and 30, comprised an eclectic mix of fashion designers, management consultants and writers. Once the organisers had an equal number of men and women, we were ushered to the dating area where the music was soft and the lights dim. I perched myself on the barstool at table No. 8, awaiting the first of my 10 dates for the evening. He turned out to be an ex-boyfriend's buddy. The conservation was stilted as we looked down at our score sheets and made a mental note to mark "not interested". Finally, the gong sounded. It was time for date No. 2. As it turned out, No. 2 was an acquaintance who had just heard of my dad's recovery from an aortic aneurysm. Next up was a grungy-looking disc jockey whose pants kissed the floor. It was impossible to make eye contact because his cap flopped too low. And his idea of conversation was pushing a paper in my face featuring questions like, "Are you a pet person?" The longest three minutes in a long time. The announcement of a 15-minute break culminated in the women, including the daughter of a corporate bigwig, swapping notes. Incidentally, speed-dating events are a great forum for female bonding. I had better luck in the post-break session. A cute real-estate developer and a witty restaurant manager meant I had real dates at last. Conversation centred on work, city life and er, hobbies. As I sipped my complimentary Blood Mary, I contemplated how many couples would meet on a second date. The next morning I had an e-mail stating, "Congratulations! You have four matches" with a list of e-mail ids. Somehow, I wasn't tempted to write in to any of my dates. This month, I bravely attempted round two of speed-dating at a South Mumbai nightclub. While the men, mostly between 20 and 30, seemed over-eager to impress, a boyish-looking management trainee from Kolkata seemed completely out of place. "I'm just a guinea pig," he stuttered, revealing his boss had signed him up to check out the scene. After a round of 10 three-minute conversations, a filmmaker and a financial analyst were the only two interesting men. On my way out, I bumped into a techie who was drinking with his buddies and struck up a conversation about speed-dating. He had been on a session a month ago and we shared a hearty laugh about our experiences. He called me a couple of days later. We met on a two-hour date. At last, some real conversation. -By Anjali Doshi

Technology has revolutionised the way young singles look for a mate. Besides sifting profiles on portals and logging on to chat rooms, advanced tools like Bluetooth allow hi-tech cell phone owners to post their profiles that are accessible to other Bluetooth users in the area, usually within a radius of 10-30 metres. While Bluetooth may invite unwarranted attention, it also means easy access to hook up right away.

PICTURE SPEAK

ON THE FAST TRACK: A couple speed dating at Athena in Delhi

SMS dating is another option. Jaspreet Singh, a 22-year-old science graduate from Delhi's Kirori Mal College recently experimented with SMS to find a date. He typed in "DAT" and sent it to 8888, short code for Indiatimes, the country's biggest SMS dating service. Within seconds he received user names of prospective dates on SMS. "It was essentially boredom that made me want to try this," he says, adding, "There is anonymity and no pressure for the date to develop into anything more. It's all very casual." SMS dating is becoming the quickest fix. "We get about 30 lakh messages every month," says Rajesh Sawhney, chief operating officer, Times Internet Ltd.

Flourishing in the dating market are also singles clubs. Along with eight singles, Malini Agarwal, producer and presenter of Go 92.5's Flirty at 7.30, instituted Going Solo last year. "This is not just a community of single men and women. It is for people who want to socialise and make new friends," says Agarwal, who initiated the club as a subsidiary of her call-in radio programme. A little over a year and the club has 3,500 members.

PICTURE SPEAK

SINGLE SOLUTION: Friday Club's Agarwal (in black) and other members

While organised dating is practised mostly by 20-35-year-olds, there are many in their late 30s and 40s on the look out as well. "There are divorced, separated or widowed people who are looking for company," says Shetty. While websites and SMS dating already cater to this age group, dating companies are planning to launch a separate event for this age group.

Not all is hunky dory in the world of organised dating. There are just as many horror stories of dates gone wrong. Besides dozens of cases of people posting deceptive profiles on dating portals, even SMS dating and speed-dating have their fair share of downsides. Singh, who used SMS dating, initiated a meeting with one of the girls he was constantly SMSing. They met at the St Stephen's College cafe in Delhi but the date turned out to be a disaster. "She was only interesting over SMS. We had nothing to talk about." Even dating in the real world does not guarantee a positive outcome. There have been cases of men going drunk to speed-dating, pestering their dates for phone numbers or lashing out at organisers because they expected to walk away with a woman. "If we find people are too desperate, we discourage them from participating or tell them the event is full," says an organiser.

Clearly organised dating is still not socially accepted. While many resort to such forums, they are very reluctant to admit it. They do not want to be perceived as desperate. Socially acceptable or not, the hunt for a date is now becoming as methodical as the search for a life partner.
-with Supriya Dravid, Radhika Giri and Stephen David

Index