If Complexion Is Insufficiently Wheatish, Just Adjust Your Monitor

Well. This is truly weird.

New Delhi: Indian bachelors keen to get a taste of married life can now log on and apply for a virtual wife online in a scheme that offers a glimpse into changing Indian society.

Bharat Matrimony’s biwihotohaisi.com (an ideal wife) website allows men to choose from four different types of wife and then receive automated telephone messages from them that reflect their character.

This is a truly obnoxious website that includes some pretty dumb sounding autoplay sound effects, and an entry screen that looks like this:

The Deccan Chronicle describes the four “virtual wives” offered to interested men, beginning with two fairly “traditional” types who embody conservative cultural values, before moving on:

While these two characters would be clearly identifiable for men of older generations, it is the other women who offer the most revealing insights into the changing characteristics of modern Indian womanhood.

Milli Chulbulli (Milli Naughty), 21, is an excitable secretary in a multinational firm with a life that revolves around shopping trips, neighbourhood gossip, and an addiction to television soap operas.

Finally, the website offers a chance to hook up with Shalini Sheherwali (Shalini From the City), an ambitious 26-year-old banker.

An independent, tech-savvy woman who purrs, ‘we’ll totally connect, honey!’, Shalini Sheherwali loves shopping online and loathes soap operas.

What I want to know is whether Bharat Matrimony is planning on offering “virtual husbands” any time soon…and if so, what stereotypes they’re going to, um, embody.

Suggestions?