When MBA beats GSoH in the lonely hearts ads
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an Indian mother in possession of an unmarried son must be in want of a daughter-in-law. And my dear mum is no different. When we meet, it is only a matter of seconds before she remarks that if I do not hurry up and find a bride I will soon be “well past it”. Any girl will do, she says, as long as she is the right religion, caste, age, skin colour, height, profession and displays the traditional homely virtues of cooking, sewing and knitting.
The arranged marriage introductions painfully awkward meetings conducted over tea and samosas began a few years ago. They usually end the same way: the girl tells her parents to tell my parents that, after careful consideration, she would rather contract MRSA than have my hand in marriage.
In general, this suits me fine because: (1) I also want an arranged marriage with this girl about as much as I want to contract MRSA; and (2) it saves me having to explain this to my parents. But I have occasionally wondered why I am always being rejected. A colleague on the Financial Times's business education team proffered a novel explanation: it is because I do not have an MBA. If you look at the matrimonial adverts in Indian newspapers, she said, a striking proportion mention the postgraduate qualification. An MBA is clearly a must on the Indian marriage scene.
I was intrigued, but unconvinced. A postgraduate qualification awarded for studying strategic management hardly seems relevant to the task of ensnaring a spouse. But perhaps I was out of touch with Indian culture.
To find out I devised a little experiment: I would post two adverts on a Sikh matrimonial site, identical except for the fact that one would be “28-year-old Londoner seeks wife” and the other “28-year-old MBA seeks wife”. If my colleague was right, the MBA advert would attract more responses than the London one. Three days after supplying information to sikhmatrimonials.com about my “body type” and “skin colour”, among other things, I viewed the results. The MBA advert had received 66 hits and one request for further information; the Londoner ad had received 44 hits and no such requests. This result illustrated two things: (1) if each hit was a unique user, then 109 out of the 110 Indian women (or 99.1 per cent) do not see me as husband material, a statistic that tallies with my experience of arranged marriage meetings; (2) an MBA makes you 50 per cent more attractive to Indian women looking for a husband.
My colleague was right. This raised the question: why has the MBA become a status symbol among Indians? I sifted through some recent Indian press coverage in search of illumination. “MBA held in robbery case”, screamed the first headline I saw. “MBA arrested for fraud”, said the next. The tone of the stories was similar to that of British newspapers writing about lottery millionaires who have gone off the rails. It seems that if an Indian MBA does anything other than become a brilliant success, it is a news story.
I called a professor at an Indian business school to inquire why this might be. He said it came down to one thing: money. An MBA is seen as a passport to a better job and higher salary. It is a status symbol, the educational equivalent of a BMW. And this is also why MBAs and arranged marriages go together like tea and samosas arranged marriages, after all, are exercises in commerce rather than chemistry.
What he said rang true. But it seems to me that there is more behind Indians' love affair with the MBAs. Just as important is that the MBA is a globally recognised and valued qualification. Indians, as we all know, have a thing about getting around the globe.
Also, MBA is an abbreviation and anyone who has opened an Indian newspaper to be confronted with headlines such as “BJP to play second fiddle to JD(U)” knows that Indians adore abbreviations and acronyms. I suspect this has something to do with English being a second language for many Indians. As they are not completely comfortable with it, they grab opportunities to make shortcuts. Certainly, most Indian parents would find it easier to say their son is an MBA than to explain he is chief infrastructure producer at some corporation.
Which brings me back to my matrimonial adverts, and to the one response I received. I was going to reply to this girl, whose pitch came under the headline “R U The 1 4 Me?? JSF Looking for JSM” (those abbreviations again, this time referring to the caste system). But then I decided it was not ideal to begin a relationship by admitting I had lied in my lonely hearts ad.
Afterwards, I briefly considered the possibility of enrolling on an MBA course. But as I flicked through adverts for business schools I came across a rather discouraging interview with Sir Martin Sorrell, founder of WPP, the advertising empire. When asked about his MBA, which he took at the age of 21, he remarked: “I took my own MBA crazily early. But 27 is too old. The ideal would be to take a MBA in your early 20s.” So my mum is right after all. I really am well past it.
MBA情结与婚配成功率
印度母亲总是迫切希望自己的儿子尽快娶妻，这是全世界众所周知的。我亲爱的母亲同样如此。我们一见面，她马上就说，如果我不赶快结婚，就会“彻底错过良机”。她说，什么样的女孩都行，只要她的宗教、种姓、年龄、肤色、个头和职业等条件般配，且具做饭、缝纫以及织毛衣等传统家庭女性的美德。
几年前开始接受边喝茶、吃萨莫萨饺，边相亲的介绍形式，既痛苦又尴尬。其结局同样如此：女孩会请她的父母告诉我的父母，经过慎重考虑，她宁肯感染超级病毒，也不愿与我共结连理。
总的来说，我觉得这样挺好。因为：一、我对这场包办婚姻的渴望程度也同对超级病毒一样；二、我省得再向父母解释。但有时我也想知道，为何自己总被拒绝。《金融时报》分管商业教育的一位同事作出了新奇解释：因为我没有MBA学位。她说，如果看一下印度报纸的征婚启事，你就会发现，提及研究生学历的人数惊人。对印度人的婚姻来说，MBA显然必不可少。
我对此很感兴趣，但并不相信。在攻读战略管理的研究生学位与找对象之间，会有任何关系。不过，或许我已远离了印度文化。
为此，我设计了一个小试验：我将在一个锡克教“红娘”网站上登载两则征婚启事，二者之间只有一点不同，即一个是“一个28岁伦敦人觅贤妻，”而另一个是“一个28岁的MBA觅贤妻。”假如我的同事是对的，那么有MBA的启事应“伦敦人”的那个获得更多回应。向sikhmatrimonials.com提供了“体型”和“肤色”等信息后3天，我察看了结果。有MBA的启事被点击66次，有一人希望了解更多信息；有“伦敦人”的启事被点击44次，没人提出类似要求。这一结果说明两件事：一、如果每次点击代表一个用户，那么在110位印度女性中有109位（或者99.1%）不认为我是做丈夫的合适人选，这一数据与我相亲的经验相吻合；二、MBA对渴望结婚的印度女性的吸引力要大50%。
我的同事是对的。这带来一个问题：为什么MBA在印度人中成了地位的象征？为寻找答案，我查阅了印度媒体最近一些报道。赫然映入眼帘的第一个标题是：“MBA因抢劫而被捕。”第二个则说：“MBA因诈骗遭拘留。”这些报道的口气就像是英国报纸描述那些行为出轨的中大奖百万富翁。好像一名印度MBA除了取得杰出成就外，做任何事情都会成为新闻。
我拨通一位印度商学院教授的电话，询问为何如此。他说，这只有一个原因――钱。MBA被视为好工作与高薪的通行证。它是地位的象征，如同教育领域的“宝马”（BMW）。这就是为什么MBA与相亲的关系，就像茶与萨莫萨饺一样和谐。包办婚姻毕竟是商业行为而非感情活动。
他的话似乎是对的。但对我而言，印度人的MBA情结背后好像还有其他因素。同样重要的是，MBA是一种全球承认的有价值的学历。众所周知，印度人向往走向世界。
另外，MBA是缩写词。任何人翻开印度报纸，看到“印度人民党（BJP）充当人民党U派（JDU）的副手”这样的标题，就会知道，印度人青睐缩写词和首写字母。我怀疑，这同很多印度人把英语作为第二语言有关。由于不能完全运用自如，他们就利用各种机会走捷径。当然，大多数印度父母认为，说自己儿子是MBA，比解释儿子是某公司的首席基建生产商更容易些。
这使我回到自己的征婚启事和我收到的那个反馈。我曾打算回答这个女孩，她的回复标题是“你是我的白马王子吗？JSF寻找JSM。”（这些也是缩写词，指种姓制度。）但我随后认定，承认自己在求婚启事中撒谎而开始与其结识，不是太好。
后来，我曾动过读MBA的念头。但当我浏览商学院的招生广告时，碰巧看到一则有关广告帝国――百帝（WPP）创办人马丁?索莱尔爵士（Martin Sorrell）的令人相当沮丧的采访文章。在被问及21岁获得的MBA学位时，他评论说：“我过早地获得了MBA。但27岁太老了。20岁出头攻读MBA才较理想。”我母亲毕竟是对的。我确实彻底错过了良机。
