A friend has recently asked for my help in asking around/background checking a rishta she?s seeing. They?ve met a few times, and she?s got a good feeling, but background checking is so important.
The most I?ve been able to do for her is double check his professional credentials. Now I?m stumped. He has no social media presence (at least not in his name) and lives in a completely different part of the country, with no overlap in our social circles. Her family are in the same situation.
What can I suggest to her? How did you/friends/families go about background checking rishtas that you didn?t know before rishtafying?
How else, in an arranged marriage setting with no extensive period of dating, do you expect people to work out whether the person is who they say they are, or to look for red flags?
You said it’s an arranged setting. How were they introduced, through mutual friends? Why not start from there? And that’s the job of the family of the girl.
For you as her friend - first name, last name, ph # and if possible, DoB can reveal a world of info but what exactly you looking for since you’ve already vetted his professional credentials?
Check his linkedin profile. He must have linkedin. One begairat wrote he has done masters in his muzmatch profile but when I stalked him and checked his linkedin, I dint see amy mention of masters degree let alone mentioning from where he has done it.. be careful..
Sometimes background checks are an exercise in futility, people change. If someone had done background checks on me they would hide under the bed but my wife tells me that I am a good father and husband. Before I met my wife this Lebanese Druze girl who was one of the top professionals in the country, would dress a bit racy and was flirtatious etc was interested in me and I got scared of her forward ways and now she is married 4 kids, runs a great business and they have a great marriage for 23 years. I would say the girl should interact with the guy and that is best way to see compatibility and chemistry and see if spidey senses go off.
I have said this before jokingly but now I think seriously that Rishta Verification Service is great opportunity for an enterprising entrepreneur.
The way it should work is that individuals should register themselves with the company and provide them all their personal information.
The company would verify this information and release it to whoever the individual authorizes.
So, if you are looking at someone for a rishta, ask them to submit their verified information and submit your verified information to them.
This is an age-old but very important question but first some safety tips. Background checking needs to be done very carefully as it hurts reputation of the guy whose background is being checked. For example, if questions are floated in his social circle too soon about any bad habits he might have and later the rishta talks break down due to some other reason. Now people who were asked those questions would start to think that rishta talks broke down because of some bad habit and so the rumor mill about him starts. People will not vouch for him as enthusiastically as they did before. I?ve seen rishta talks break down solely due to over-zealous background checking. It should be among the last things during rishta process, not among the first.
Another thing is that some families do background checking with bad intentions. They collect so much information in the name of background checking so they could use it later to blackmail the guy after marriage. Again I have seen rishta talks breakdown when such behavior is discovered in time.
Having said all that, I must also acknowledge how important background checking is. I know of a case of this widow who got lots of money from insurance after her husband died in an accident. During the run up to her second marriage to a top executive at a major Bank, being a homebody she was just so happy that such a fine person had accepted her and her children and she didn`t wanted anything to go wrong. So there was no background checking done, even though some of her relatives politely raised suspicions(of criminal nature) about the guy but she dismissed them. Then just a couple of months before marriage, the guy got arrested as a complete fraud in some other ongoing investigation. Lucky for the lady and her family !
Now coming to your actual question. Since your friend seems to be unable to find any of his social circles, perhaps try to connect with this guy`s college MSA, regardless if the guy was religious or not. Ask them to connect you to someone from his batch who may in turn know some person who knows him in a personal capacity. Tell them its about marriage and hopefully you?ll find leads. Mature people understand how important it is and will readily help.
Thanks guys, some useful replies in here. And some entertaining ones!!
I think I will pass some of these suggestions on to her - this is definitely not my business anymore!