Anupam Mittal, Shaadi.com founder and Shark Tank India judge on May 29 posted a video on his Instagram page informing about his company's special AI feature to calculate Dowry. As per the website, DowrAI is India's first dowry calculator to know how much a person is worth in today’s marriage market.
In his post, he wrote, “Ek chutki sindoor ki keemat ab tum bhi jaano Ramesh babu.” In the video, Mittal explains that calculating dowry in the past used to be straightforward, but nowadays, people consider many factors such as income, SIPs, mobile phone brands, and whether the honeymoon will be in the Maldives or Lakshadweep. So is Shaadi.com founder promoting Dowry?
To know your dowry worth, enter details such as age, profession, monthly salary, education, residence, and country. The ‘Dowry Calculator’ is a satirical tool designed to estimate a person's 'keemat'. After clicking on 'Calculate now,' users are then presented with crucial data on the number of dowry deaths reported in India over the past 10 years.
It further asks, “Before calculating your worth, ask yourself what is her life worth? Let’s do away with Dowry Be a part of the change now.”
Initially, when Mittal posted the video on Instagram, people slammed him as they thought that he was promoting dowry. But later Netizens lauded his initiative. The video which was posted on May 29 has garnered over 22,000 likes.
One user wrote, “Why to promote dowry ? R u serious ?”
“Why to promote dowry! I don’t get it its a joke or serious”
“Very catchy marketing to bring about change”
“This is Dow-some”
“Amazing initiative”
“It's a great step to end dowry culture.... great marketing by the way”
“Had me for a second.. Glad we’re talking about this. It’s real, it’s scary and it needs change”
“I salute you man! The way you find to open eyes of the people is really formidable. Keep doing great things... You have a lot of blessings of many families from India.”