When Rohini Ramnathan's husband passed away unexpectedly in 2017, the 37-year-old thought she'd never find love again.
But two years later, Ramnathan downloaded a dating app on her phone for the first time and started swiping on potential matches.
"My first impression was, 'Wow, there are so many people and they're all single'," she says.
"And then I thought, 'Wow, there are so many good-looking people'."
Ramnathan, a radio presenter who lives in Mumbai, says dating apps have helped her to understand and explore "the casualness of dating" in India.
Young people in India embrace dating apps
Young, single Indians make up the second-largest market of dating app users globally, just behind the US.
In 2014, Tinder was the first app to launch in India.
The top three apps in India – Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge – collectively grew by 17 per cent in January 2022 (from January 2019), according to the research firm Sensor Tower.
Local Indian dating apps, like TrulyMadly and Aisle, also saw a surge in popularity, especially during the pandemic.
According to Snehil Khanor, the CEO and co-founder of TrulyMadly, the app has grown to more than 8 million users, gaining more traction over the past 12 months, especially in smaller towns and cities.
"Many people realised that a dating app is one of the best ways to meet new people," Khanor said.
A whole new world of relationships have opened up
As the apps shift the love-game for India's 400 million millennials, many people who live in bigger urban cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore are also juggling non-traditional dating preferences with conventional cultural expectations and pressures of Indian society.
Thirty-year-old Anirban Bhattacharjee downloaded Grindr, an app for the LGBTQ community, in his 20s.
The creative director, who grew up in a small town in north-east India and now lives in Mumbai, says downloading the app was like finding a "global treasure".
Bhattacharjee, who now lives in Mumbai, acknowledges that dating in a metropolitan city is different to dating in a small town.
"Forget being gay, if you are 30 and unmarried, you better not step out of your house," he says, "because people are going to ask you a lot of questions."
Bhattacharjee is now exploring an open relationship, or ethical non-monogamy, with his partner – whom he met on the app nearly four years ago.
"Dating apps encouraged me to explore who I am and what I want, which I don't think was possible in the pre-app world," he says.
The expanded dating spectrum can be overwhelming
Ankur Pathak, 28, who grew up in Mumbai on a steady diet of Bollywood romance.
Pathak downloaded Bumble "purely for anthropological reasons," he says.
For him, one big positive of being on an app was that it allowed him to meet people outside of his own social circles.
But at the same time, he found it overwhelming as someone who believes in finding love "the old-fashioned way".
"We didn't do this before," he adds.
Arranged marriage versus a love match
A 2020 survey found that 62 per cent of millennial Indians preferred a love marriage over an arranged marriage, a number that rose to 69 per cent for Gen Z.
These preferences are also underpinning the growth of online dating in India, whose revenue is projected to reach $796 million this year, according to Statista.
Pathak only lasted on the dating apps for about a week, but acknowledges that dating apps have normalised the idea of casual dating among his friends and family – and the notion that dating doesn't have the explicit purpose of leading to marriage.
"Parents, at least in urban cities, are OK with the idea of their kids figuring it out," he said.
Ramnathan says she isn't facing any pressure from her family and friends to get married again, but dating apps have at least given her a "second chance" at finding love.
