When I first landed in the Arab Gulf region many years ago, I was hot property for Indian parents searching for a match for their daughters.

At that time, all it needed was a job, any job, in this region (but even more wonderful, if you worked at an office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) and it did not matter if you were cross-eyed and it seemed as if you were speaking to the cat seated on a chair to the left of the person to whom you were addressing.

It did not matter even if you were no longer a spring chicken anymore and had a huge rice belly; parents were willing to give away their precious, young daughter to you to love and cherish, and give you money as a dowry, maybe even the latest 500cc motorcycle and the latest fridge with an automatic defroster, that you could keep in the living room to impress visitors.

All this escaped my notice maybe because getting settled down was not a priority, as living abroad for the first time in my life was an exciting adventure, and getting hitched to a total stranger and raising brats was the last thing on my mind.

While Indian parents had a tough time trying to get rid of their daughters, Saudi parents had it even worse. There was no mingling of the sexes at that time and the only way to get a good match for their daughter was through a greedy, manipulative woman called the “Matchmaker” (khateba in Arabic) who knew the goings-on of every family around the block. She demanded and usually got the high price for getting two souls together and incidentally, divorce rate in Saudi Arabia is quite high. The Matchmaker may or may not be the root cause of marriages being dissolved, but I am just saying, as the teens remark on social media to make a point.

Over time, being an NRI became something of a joke, that guy who returns home once a year and pretends he owns all the textile shops in downtown Balad. Nobody liked him because he flaunted his money and took away all the good looking girls who could cook and were obedient and wonderful wife material.

Just like skilled jobs such as plumbing and electrical wiring became hot jobs as the Arab Gulf region started its infrastructure development, you could not find anyone to fix a tap in India for some time. The same thing happened as every Indian in the Gulf wanted to get married now that he was sort of flush with cash.

The sadder part was that no Indian parent wanted a journo for a son-in-law (“Renuka married a journalist and he was dead within five years of the marriage. He smoked and he imbibed. She is now looking for someone safe like an engineer or a doctor.”)

Before I could take advantage of my important status, the tide suddenly turned and parents started looking elsewhere, to the West, and being an NRI (a non-resident Indian) was no longer prestigious and you had to be an IT guy who had landed a job in Silicon Valley.

But time and tide wait for no man, or woman, and ever since Donald Trump was elected POTUS and America became more protectionist towards jobs, IT guys fell from favour as prospective mates in the arranged marriage market.

The Economic Times published from Mumbai reports a recent advert placed in the matrimonial column that has a sad ending: “(Seeks) IAS/IPS, doctor, businessman. Software engineers kindly do not call.”

As a scary sci-fi future unfolds many jobs are being taken over by automation and Indian society is also changing and parents now are seeking robots with special skill sets such as cooking, taking care of the baby and driving.

Mahmood Saberi is a journalist based in India.