visakhapatnam parents of ch venkanna babu a farmer from an upperclass community from a village near rajahmundry always desired to bring a daughterinlaw from the same community into their family despite their best efforts they struggled to find a suitable match for babua degree dropout who owns nearly 10 acres of fertile land for several years as no one from their community was willing to marry off their girl to a farmer after several failed wedding negotiations the family had to pay rs 20 lakh as bride price reverse dowry to the girls family in 2022 to seal the deal they had to hurry too as another party was ready to offer rs 25 lakh for the same bride had babu withdrawn from the negotiations babu is not the only one m jagan a youth from the same village and a relative of babu had to marry a girl from another community as he was considered doing a low paid job and could not afford to offer heavy dowry such incidents have become a trend in many areas of andhra pradesh in recent years boys who are into certain professions like farming traditional occupations and family businesses are least preferred in the marriage marketplace there have been many such instances in the combined east godavari west godavari krishna and guntur districts where men were driven to pay the girlsthe trend is partly fuelled by the growing educational employment generational and aspirational mismatch between the two parties wherein dowry works as a partial compensation the clear gender imbalance in certain communities and areas has been forcing grooms to offer reverse dowry to the brides family which was known as kanyasulkam in some parts of ap before independence the everincreasing matchmaking struggles are now forcing men to scout for girls from other districts of the statefor instance gorrela mahesh from samalkot had to marry a girl from a village near sabbavaram in visakhapatnam districtsome 250 kilometres away from his native town mahesh too faced rejections for almost five years before he manging to find a suitable one for him in 2021its a nearly similar story for r prakash name changed a 35yearold pharma professional from a small village in combined east godavari district his parents started scouting for a suitable match for him since he was 27 but seven years down the line he is still waiting to find a girl who would give her stamp of approval to his paycheck over the years there has been a clear transformation from my initial days of rejections the girls now want to know the pay package of boys first before giving the goahead a salary of less than rs 1 lakh per month is a strict nono for them said prakash adding that majority of the proposals that came his way were m i r e d b y t h e growing mismatch between the high aspirations and expectations of the younger bridestobe and his modest living standards the societal and