Prospective FIL couldn't believe Tier-2 MBA grad me outearning his Tier-1 MBA grad daughter. He asked me if I take kickbacks.

Had an interesting conversation with a prospective bride’s father this weekend. I receive an interest from a girl’s profile on Shaadi and I accept it. Her father rings me up later in the evening to talk about it and after getting to know about my background, family, etc., he comes to my salary side of things. I have mentioned mine as 75 LPA - 1Cr on my profile while his daughter falls under the 30-50 LPA bracket as mentioned on her profile. She has done her MBA from IIM-C and also has done her schooling from a tier-1 school in the tier-1 city that she is from. She is currently working as a brand manager at an FMCG company roughly drawing a fixed amount of 38 LPA. I’m from the same tier-1 city as hers but both my schooling and MBA were from tier-2 institutions. I’m into Marketing as well. She’s 35 and I’m 36 years old.

Now he wants to know about my fixed + variable + ESOPS component and I break it down for him. I’m still falling under the 50-75 LPA bracket sans the ESOPs and he just couldn’t digest it. Both of us are more or less the same profile in terms of career except for the fact that she is all tier-1 and I’m all tier-2, and beating his daughter’s salary by a comfortable 15+ LPA in base pay despite being in marketing. Meanwhile he is also acting surprised that I have equity (I work in a startup). He disconnects the call telling me that he will come back after discussing with his daughter and family.

15-20 minutes later, he calls me again. Now this time the questions were even more stupid. He goes on to ask me whether I am doing any side gigs or taking any kickbacks from the vendors who work with me. This time I decided to draw the line, and I told him I am not willing to take this discussion forward and I don’t want to waste my time any further. I even disconnected the call.

The girl’s family has a business background, and they have a mid-sized retail chain in the tier-1 city where we both are from. So I guess it is very natural of them to evaluate grooms basis their salary. I won’t be surprised if he goes on to ask my ITR filings and salary slips in the future (I wouldn’t mind sharing though because I have nothing to hide), but the entire approach of being evaluated based on my salary on the very first call to the extent of grilling me on my resume (he also asked me where all I worked and how much time I spent in each company) and my salary breakdown was super off putting. It was insulting rather I would say.

Either he and his daughter have been living in a delusion that marketing doesn’t pay much, or maybe they are thinking that if someone who has been only from tier-1 institutions all their life can still fall back when compared to a tier-2 groom. You literally send me an interest only because of my salary (we both are not even from the same caste), and you don’t want to believe me when I break it down for you. At 35, if this is how he wants to get his daughter married, then I really pity her. For all we may know, he might be the one sabotaging her marriage, but talking to grooms and their families in this way. It’s time they realized that there is always a bigger fish out there, and that they can always get humbled.

Later in the night, the girl visited my LinkedIn profile. Hope she soon finds a guy from IIM-A or B because only those two guys are probably eligible in her family’s universe now.

My faith in the AM process keeps touching new lows every passing day.