When Meera Patel was 24, she told her friends, "I'm going to find a husband in a year".

The young women laughed at her certainty — after all, up until then Meera had barely shown interest in dating, let alone marriage.

But the Sydney pharmacy student wasn't joking. And she wasn't "casting positive thoughts into the universe" or setting unrealistic expectations, either.

Like generations of Gujarati Indians before her, Meera had enlisted her family to find her a husband.

'A modernised, modified version'

While the practice of arranged marriage dates back thousands of years, it remains commonplace in many parts of the world, especially South Asia.

In 2016, a study of Indian youth found 84 per cent of those married were in arranged unions.

But the tradition has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, according to Australian National University PhD student and Mumbai resident Nonie Tuxen.

"If you speak to a lot of people here in India over the age of, say, 75, many of them did not see or speak to their spouse prior to their wedding," she says.

Meera will marry in her family's village in India, before moving to New Zealand to live with her husband. ( ABC Arts: Teresa Tan )

"Whereas nowadays, young people both here in India, and in the diaspora, have a great deal of say in who they marry.

"The decision ultimately lies with them… it doesn't lie with their families.

Hemangini Patel — a close friend of Meera — agrees that the lines between "love marriages" and arranged unions are blurring.

"When you talk about arranged marriage now, it's a modernised, modified version of what you'd expect," she says.

"Growing up, arranged marriage always seemed like a very old-school value.

"This is the first generation that I've seen choosing that route as an option, rather than a feeling like they don't really have a choice."

And choice, Ms Tuxen stresses, is central to arranged unions.

"There's a lot of confusion about whether an arranged marriage is forced in some way — it never is, forced marriage is an entirely separate issue," she says.

Must speak Gujarati, vegetarian preferred

Growing up, Meera had no intention of asking her parents for an arranged marriage.

"I just thought that your parents introduced you to someone and you had to get married in, like, a month," she laughs.

But as she entered her 20s — a time when "everyone starts talking about your marriage" in the Indian community, according to Hemangini — Meera felt overwhelmed by the dating scene.

Hemangini Patel and Meera Patel met at Sydney's BAPS Swaminarayan temple a decade ago and have been friends since. ( ABC Arts: Teresa Tan )

"I was doing a Master's degree which was a two-year course … so [I had] no time to think about anything except for work and studying," she explains.

"I would have no idea where to go and look for a person.

"So, when my parents approached me with the idea [of arranged marriage] … I'm like, 'Yes! You do all the work for me and I'm happy with whatever!'"

Unlike other young women her age, Meera's prerequisites for a husband didn't involve height, humour or hobbies.

Mr Right had to be a Hindu and, more specifically, a member of the BAPS Swaminarayan faith.

"I'm very religious, so I wanted someone with the same religious background as me, to make it easier for us to understand each other," she says.

"We have some dietary requirements — we don't eat onion or garlic, and we're very strict vegetarians, as well, so I wanted someone who can understand that."

Language was another deciding factor.

The BAPS Swaminarayan faith originated in the west-Indian state of Gujarat, and most temple members still speak Gujarati at home.

"I wanted someone who could not only communicate with my parents, but everyone else in my family," Meera explains.

Meera is travelling to India with her mother to organise the wedding dresses, venue, decorations and catering. ( ABC Arts: Teresa Tan )

The push to marry young

When Meera gave the green light for an arranged marriage, her parents contacted Gujarati families across the globe.

Several potential suitors popped up in America, but the long-distance courtship didn't work out. Meera was deterred not by the geography, but the difficulty in landing a pharmaceutical job in the States.

Then, in early 2016, her sister-in-law put forward the name of a young New Zealand man, Rushi, who had visited their Swaminarayan temple in Sydney.

"My dad contacted his dad, and after that we exchanged numbers," she recalls.

Texting led to phone calls, and soon Meera and Rushi were flying across the Tasman to meet each other's families.

But the burgeoning relationship came with expectations.

"It had been about a month or two months … and my parents wanted me to get married straight away," Meera says.

"We decided to talk to my parents and convince them to give us more time and see if this is actually going to work out in the long run."

Thankfully, the power of persuasion worked. By the time Meera and Rushi marry in India next January, they will have dated for almost two years.

It's a compromise that wouldn't have been accepted in an arranged union even a generation ago.

Trusting your elders

Although Meera butted heads with her parents over the length of her engagement, she still believes they were better suited to find her a husband than she was.

Ms Tuxen — who is herself married an Indian man — says this mentality is an enduring one.

"South Asian cultures have a deep respect for family and elders," she says.

"There's a cultural belief that nobody knows a young person better than their parents, and so then who better to select a partner?

"The elder generations are viewed as having more life experience and are therefore in a better position to make a good decision about a life partner."

When it comes to Meera's wedding, her parents are assisting with more than just the arrangement.

"It's going to be a big wedding, from what I hear, because it's going to be planned by my parents fully," she smiles.

"As long as they're happy, I'm happy."