What goes into a marriage biodata

Personal details

The rows every biodata opens with. They sit under the name and are read first, so they are short: a date, a place, a height.

Name

The full name as it should be read aloud. It is the title of the sheet and the one row that is not optional.

Date of Birth

Written out — 15 August 1995 — so a family reading a photocopy is never guessing at a digit. Age follows from it and need not be a row.For example: 15 August 1995

Place of Birth

The town, and the state if the town could be anywhere. Families who match horoscopes read this beside the time of birth.For example: Indore, Madhya Pradesh

Height

In feet and inches, the way it is said. Weight is an optional row that most sheets leave out.For example: 5 feet 10 inches

Complexion

A row many families still print and many now skip. The form offers it; nothing insists on it.For example: Fair

Marital Status

Never married, divorced, widowed. A second marriage is stated plainly here rather than left to be discovered.

Mother Tongue

The language spoken at home. It matters more than the language the sheet is written in.

Religion

An ordinary optional row. Where a family prints it, it sits here; the community sets add the rows that go with it.

Diet

Vegetarian, non-vegetarian, Jain, and so on. For some families this is the first row they look for.

Blood Group

Occasionally printed; harmless to include and easy to leave out.

The rows from a boy's sideThe rows from a girl's side

Education

One or two lines: the highest degree and where it was earned. A biodata is not a CV, and a list of every certificate makes it read like one.

Education

Degree, subject, institution — B.Com (Hons), Delhi University. Add a second line only when it changes the picture, such as a professional qualification.For example: B.Tech in Computer Science, IIT Indore

Work and income

What the person does, where, and, if the family chooses to say it, what it earns.

Occupation

The role and the employer or business, in the words a relative would use: Senior Consultant, KPMG; Business — Sharma Textiles. Add the city when the job is elsewhere than the family.For example: Senior Software Engineer, Google

Annual Income

Optional and personal. Many families print a figure or a range; many prefer to say it in person. Leave the row out rather than round it up.For example: ₹42 LPA

Family details

Who the family is: the parents and what they do, the brothers and sisters, and where the family is from. The other side reads this section as carefully as the first.

Father's Name

With the honorific the family uses — Sh., Shri, Late.For example: Sh. Rajesh Gupta

Father's Occupation

As for the person's own occupation: the role and where. Retired is an answer.For example: Business (Steel Trading)

Mother's Name

Smt., Mrs., or the name alone, as the family writes it.For example: Smt. Sunita Gupta

Mother's Occupation

Homemaker is a complete answer and the commonest one on printed sheets.For example: Homemaker

Siblings

Each brother and sister, and whether they are married: 1 elder sister (married), 1 younger brother. Where a sibling is settled abroad, families often say so here.For example: 1 Brother (Married), 1 Sister (Unmarried)

Family Type

Joint or nuclear. One word, and it answers a question every family asks.For example: Joint Family

Family Values

Traditional, moderate, liberal. A row some sheets carry and some find awkward; it is optional.

Native Place

The ancestral town or village, printed even by families three generations out of it.For example: Indore, Madhya Pradesh

Why some sheets add the mother's family

Contact details

Who to call, and how. A biodata travels on WhatsApp between people the family may not know yet, so put on it only what you are comfortable with a stranger reading.

Contact Person

Usually a parent or an uncle rather than the boy or girl — whoever should take the first call.For example: Sh. Rajesh Gupta

Contact Number

One number, checked twice. A wrong digit here is the commonest mistake on any biodata.For example: +91 90000 XXXXX

Email ID

Optional. Useful when the family expects to exchange documents.For example: rakesh.gupta@example.com

Residential Address

The city and area are enough for a first exchange; the full address can follow once the families are talking. Print it only if you want it printed.For example: 12, Palasia Square, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 452001

What BioMaker keeps, and for how long

Horoscope rows

Rashi, nakshatra, gotra, manglik, and the time of birth that lets a pandit draw the chart. Some families match horoscopes before anything else; some never do. These rows are for the first kind and simply absent for the second.

Time of Birth

To the minute if it is known — the chart depends on it. Families who do not match horoscopes leave it out.For example: 10:30 AM

Rashi

The moon sign. Printed with its English name in brackets on many sheets: Simha (Leo).For example: Simha (Leo)

Nakshatra

The birth star, and in the south its padam. The row the matching starts from.For example: Magha

Gotra

The paternal lineage. Families check it to avoid a match inside the same one, and some print the mother's gotra too.For example: Bharadwaj

Manglik

Yes, no, or partial (anshik). Stated plainly on the sheets that use it, because it is asked anyway.For example: No

Family Deity

The family deity, sometimes with the temple town. A row on Hindu, South Indian, Gujarati and Marwari sheets.

What the horoscope rows meanThe South Indian jathagam rows

Rows some communities add

Different communities print different things, and the differences are not small: a Marwari sheet carries the mother's family in full, a Jain sheet leads with sect and diet, a Muslim sheet carries sect and maslak and no horoscope at all. The community pages show each set of rows filled in.

Caste

An ordinary optional row on the sheets that print it. On a Muslim sheet the same row carries the biradari.For example: Brahmin

Sub-Caste

Where the family uses one.

Sect

Sunni or Shia on a Muslim sheet; Digambar or Shwetambar on a Jain one. Different answers, the same row.

Sub-Sect

The maslak — Deobandi, Barelvi — or the Jain sub-sect: Sthanakvasi, Deravasi, Terapanthi.

Nakh

The clan, on Gujarati and Marwari sheets.

Samaj

The circle a match is made inside, on Gujarati and Marwari sheets.

Devak

A clan totem — a plant, a bird, a tool — on Maharashtrian sheets. Not a deity.

Denomination

Syro-Malabar, Marthoma, CSI, Pentecostal: on a Christian sheet this is the row that does the work.

Church

The parish, with the diocese beside it, on a Christian sheet.

Amritdhari

On a Sikh sheet, where a Hindu sheet would print manglik.

Every community format, filled in

Optional rows, and the photograph

Hobbies, a line about the person, what the family hopes for in a match. Include what you are comfortable sharing and nothing you are not — a biodata is read by people you have not met.

Hobbies

Two or three, honestly: reading, cricket, classical music. It is the one row that sounds like a person rather than a record.

The photograph: where it sits on each designWhat to leave out

The labels in English, Hindi and Marathi

The exact words a printed sheet uses for each row, in the three scripts families most often write by hand. These are the strings the biodata maker prints; the other eight languages are on their own pages.

Every label in HindiEvery label in MarathiThe other eight languages