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Chennai: Some would call it paranoia. Others may call it a sign of the times. Either way, uncertainty in the Chennai marriage market is proving booming business for detective agencies in the city. “Most of our business comes by way of pre-marital and post-marital inquiries,” said founder and director of the Malathi Women’s Detective Agency, Mount Road, A.M. Malathi. “Almost 90 per cent of our income comes to us this way,” she added . This is so for the Raj Detective Agency located on Mount Road. Director Benjamin Thiyagaraj said that most of his customers asked him to perform background checks on their potential or current partners.

Malathi Women’s Detective Agency and Raj Detective Agency are but two of the 14 agencies listed in the Yellow Pages. “Most of the agencies receive inquiries of this sort,” said Thiyagaraj, adding, “The state of society today has necessitated services like ours.” Pre-marital inquiries are more in demand, with an increasing number of people asking detective agencies to run a background check on potential partners for themselves or their children.

These background checks consist largely of surveillance. “We shadow the person for a period of 21 days and hand over a confidential report to the client. If school and college records are available to us then we go through them. But we avoid talking to people, as the subject might get to know and become suspicious,” said Malathi. She claims that this technique has a 99 per cent success rate. “Just recently we were asked to do a random background check on a man who had expressed interest in marrying a girl. But when we shadowed him, we found that he already had another family,” she said.

“This need to perform background checks on people before marriage is a trend that has always existed in our society,” said playwright and activist Mangai. “I know of people who have looked for background information on their potential spouses, although they have not gone so far as to approach a detective agency to do it for them.”. She added that earlier it was easier to know the background of a person because marriages took place within a certain clan or village. But it had become much more difficult today – hence the need for these agencies.”
Mangai also termed the increasing demand for background checks by women as indicative of an interesting trend. “It shows that women no longer feel that marriage is necessarily a relationship that guarantees safety and security,” she said, adding, “However there is the danger that the need for investigating becomes more important than anything else.”

The increasing demand for such inquiries has also resulted in the employment and training of more detectives. “Since there is no detective school in the country, we train our detectives ourselves,” said Thiyagaraj. Malathi concurred, stating that new entrants were first taken as observers before being assigned cases of their own . There was no differentiation on the basis of gender in cases of pre- and post-marital inquiries, although according to Malathi, in some types of investigations such as blackmail, women in particular felt more comfortable talking to female detectives.

The techniques of post-marital surveillance do not substantially differ from pre-marital inquiries.However Malathi said that it was trickier. “When shadowing spouses, we also have to provide photographs as evidence of misdemeanour. There is always the need for proof,” she said.

There was a mixed reaction to such post-marital inquiries. “The concept of using a detective agency to spy on one’s spouse is problematic,” said marketing executive and founder of the Tamil Nadu Kidney Research Foundation (TANKER) Latha Kumaraswami. “I would feel that it’s better to talk something like this out, but I know many people do not have the option,” she said, adding, “I know of people who have had detectives set on them and it is not pleasant at all.” Electrical engineer Lakshman, 32, does not entirely agree. “Of course it’s a grey area,” he said, asking, “But what is the greater evil: tailing someone or the act of cheating itself?”

“People are uncertain because of the state of society today,” said Thiyagaraj, adding, “They have no way of knowing what their spouses or partners are up to. We help them find out.” But this knowledge does not come cheap. Charges for pre- and post-marital (and relationship) inquiries begin at Rs 10,000 and vary according to the nature and difficulty of the services required. “Sometimes clients come to us with specific requests, but most requests pertain to general background checks,” said Malathi. “These are more expensive as they require more extensive shadowing and surveillance activity”

But whether it is higher levels of “promiscuity” or the fact that people can now afford to have a professional act on their suspicions, no price is too high for people to keep tabs on their partners -potential or current.

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Editor : Ranjani Rajendra