The Vanishing Grooms

Last week, while eating biryani at a modest restaurant in Handwara, I noticed a familiar face from the foggy lanes of my childhood — Habibiullah saeb, famous in the vicinity as Hab Kak. Not a bureaucrat, not a poet. But a man who once carried dreams — not his own, but of parents and daughters and sons and households, across villages of my district. A middleman. A traditional matchmaker whom we call “Manzem your’. The man who would walk miles with nothing but a frail frame and a small leather wallet full of photographs and names. The man who lit homes with unions, who brokered not deals but hopes.

I offered him biryani. He accepted with a quiet smile. Then came a woman, breathless, her voice worn by years of waiting. She recognized “Hab Kak” instantly and, with folded hands and quivering words, pleaded: “Please find a match for my daughters… they’re getting older.”

But the old matchmaker shook his head — not with arrogance, but with helplessness. He pulled out his weathered wallet, opened it slowly, and showed her what was inside — not currency, but the profiles of a hundred girls.“Brides,” he whispered, “are everywhere now. But the grooms… they’ve disappeared.” We exchanged greetings, and like most conversations in Kashmir, the hellos soon dissolved into something deeper.

He looked tired — not just in body, but in soul.

“There’s a storm beneath the silence,” Hab Kak said, his voice barely rising above the restaurant clatter. “Every other day, parents of girls come to me. Some cry. Some beg. ‘Please Hab Kak, she’s forty now. Find someone. Anyone.’ “But where do I go? Where are the boys?” His eyes drifted toward the distant mountains, searching for answers.

“Decades ago, boys’ families would line up at my door. They’d say: ‘Find us someone simple, respectful.’ Now... they’re gone. The boys have left. They’re in cities, abroad, chasing dreams.

And those who remain?” — he paused — “They come with lists. Demands. Conditions. Tall. Fair. Educated. Working. Slim. Modern-yet-religious. Fluent in English. And yes, preferably not from a poor family.” He laughed — not out of joy, but out of resignation. A tired, bitter laugh that made the biryani taste like ash. This isn’t just a story about a matchmaker running out of matches. It is a quiet heartbreak. A crisis in Kashmir that no one is naming.

In Kashmir, daughters are waiting — not for dowries or wedding feasts, but for someone to say yes.

Some are undergraduates,some are postgraduates. Some can stitch like their grandmothers. Some are soft-spoken, some outspoken. But all have hearts full of dreams — and none of them are being fulfilled.

They are growing older in silence, watching the seasons pass. They water the flowers, sweep the courtyards, prepare tea, teach students, care for their aging parents.

But the suitors never come.

Marriage — once a sacred, simple union — has now become a marketplace.

Where it was once about compatibility, kindness, and shared values, it is now about complexion, salary, language skills, waist size.

We have traded companionship for conditions. We have turned humans into resumes. It is not just a gender issue. It is a moral one. A cultural one.

We have raised daughters who are educated, graceful, capable — and now, we’ve left them waiting at the door, staring at the road that never brings a groom. What’s worse is that we’re not even talking about it.

A society that shouts about marriage but whispers about the girls still waiting is a society that must ask itself: where is it headed?

“We are failing them,” Hab Kak said finally.

“I feel like I’m chasing shadows. I carry names, photos, prayers — but the matches have vanished.” That line sat with me like an uninvited guest the entire night.

Let this not be just another conversation over a plate of biryani.Let this be the start of something deeper — a reckoning. Let us ask ourselves: Why are our daughters waiting? And what kind of society keeps them waiting so long?

Khursheed Dar is a teacher and author from Langate.