‘A 68-year-old bachelor and US green card holder is looking for a suitable bride... has been staying in US for 25 years... earns between Rs8-10 lakh per month. Interested candidates please apply’ — and there was a deluge of applicants who almost swept away the office of a marriage bureau with its intensity of interest and suitability!

Little did Natu Patel, founder of the marriage bureau, Vina Mulya Amulya Sewa in Vasna, think his advertisement in a regional newspaper of Ahmedabad for this NRI groom in his sunset years would evince such interest! A staggering 51 applications later, Patel understands it’s not the man, but the ‘US tag’ that’s the biggest lure in this case.

“This is the first time we have received a bachelor in this advanced age group, i.e., above 50 years.What has surprised me isn’t the huge number of applications but the age groups of women who have applied — from 21 to 50+ years!” said Patel, listing the candidates age group wise: 21 from candidates within 20-45 years, 15 in the age group of 35-50 and 15 from women above 50 years of age.

“Amdavadi women, or rather Gujarati per se are crazy for the US tag and will do anything for the same,” is how the Samaritan summed up the deluge of applications.

Patel also pointed out the varied academic levels of the applicants — from some dentists to divorcees, widows and school dropouts (fifth, sixth or maybe second grade). Not only that, Patel has also received an application from a Muslim family (for a 30-year-old girl), only because the candidate is a US citizen!

Patel couldn’t mask his curiosity while scrutinising the 21-year-olds’ applications and asked them what was the biggest lure for marrying a man probably as old as their grandfather. “His US citizen status,” pat came their unabashed replies.

“Interestingly, candidates who are school dropouts are ready to stay with the old man even without marriage, or even as labourers,” Patel said, adding that three candidates, around 45-years-old, who are married and have children, said that their husbands were ready to divorce them enabling their wives to thereby to marry the US candidate and settle abroad. “It was quite an eye-opening experience for me,” he added.

Besides the one candidate who intends to remarry as her husband has gone missing for 15-years now, there was another applicant, a “very beautiful 40-year-old divorcee”, who se father wanted a surety for his daughter in terms of Rs30 lakh as a security for her future. “I obviously refused it,” Patel chuckled, stating that for now he is entertaining applications of women above 50 years for now.