Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Dowry Structure

Someone we know is getting married. So what’s the big deal? Well, the deal is indeed big, literally! He is getting a dowry of Rs. 25 crores. Yes, 25 crores!! Obviously, like the CTCs of B school grads, the lump sum figure sounds impressive, but the actual in hand cash component isn’t that much. Still, 25 crores, in whatever form is a good enough compensation for settling down, or may be just settling… as a friend of mine put very seriously: “the size of the car you get should be directly proportional to the size of the girl… the fatter the girl, larger is the car!” So 25 crores? How fat are we talking about here?

No, this is not a feminist post raving and ranting about what’s wrong with society and the Great Indian Marriage Market- we have enough people already commenting about that. This is about the 10 minute IM conversation with my padosi immediately after we heard about the 25 crore “deal”. So yes, like we have a very well defined salary structure, now we also have a structured “dowry structure” based on this 25 crore “package”:

So the breakdown of the salary is as follows-

Joining Bonus: the 80 lac cash upfront
House Rent Allowance: the 2 bhk flat
Transportation Allowance: the Ford Fiesta car
Special Allowance: The X kg gold jewelry and X acres of land
Esops: The share in the family property

So you are left asking, where does the bride figure in? Still wondering… may be the cranky boss that comes with a handsome package!

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