Shaadi.com's 'Dowry Calculator', which has a hidden and powerful message, recently went viral on social media. The calculator is a satirical feature that offers to calculate how much dowry a man can demand from a woman's family. It is intended to inquire users about their educational background, financial situation and other information. When users click to see what their worth is, the feature displays unexpected yet significant information. It presents statistics on dowry deaths in India. Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal recently took to social media to sarcastically promote this tool. However, the users who already knew about the tool, praised him for the initiative while a large section of people slammed him for promoting dowry, which was abolished in 1961.
In the clip shared on Instagram, Mr Mittal said that it was easy to calculate dowry when the practice was prevalent in the country. He added, "Now it has become extremely complicated. It depends on income, SIP, startup equity." The former Shark Tank India judge highlighted that people also judge others based on whether they use an Android device or an iPhone. "To simplify all this, we integrated AI, MM and ChatGPT to create a Dowry Calculator which is known as DowrAI."
Watch the video below:
"Ek chutki sindoor ki keemat ab tum bhi jaano Ramesh babu," he wrote while sharing the clip. Since being shared, it has amassed seven lakh views and 14,000 likes. Many users had mixed reactions towards his post.
"Plz don't promote dowry, did not expect this from you," said a user.
"Exactly! Why to promote dowry ? R u serious ?," another wrote.
A third person said, "Very catchy marketing to bring about change!"
"Perfect example of don't judge a book by it's cover," said a fourth user.
"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," a person wrote.
A user added, "Had me for a second glad we're talking about this. It's real, it's scary and it needs change.
