DowryCalculator.com is a satirical website that parodies India's one of the most prominent and archaic societal evils -- Dowry. According to Sify, “The calculator mocks the varied factors that potential brides and grooms in the country have to consider in a traditional Indian marriage. The application demands one to fill in age, caste, profession, salary, father's occupation, skin tone (giving priority to fair skin and less importance to dark skin) and height among others to arrive at a whimsical "dowry rate" or dowry worth.”.
The website was launched on May 6, 2011 and was viral within a couple of hours of it being live. Consequently, it was one of the top trending topic in Twitter India. It also garnered more than half a million hits within a month of its launch. Dedicated sardonically to 'all the match making aunties of India', the website has delineated how the younger generation of India has started rejecting the age old custom of Dowry and is even making a mockery of it Besides mocking the dowry system, the application also pokes fun at some of the unhealthy obsession of the Indian society, for instance, IIT-ians, skin color, salary.etc Dowry Calculator also comments on how certain professions have been linked traditionally to higher dowry demands.
The website has been created by Tanul Thakur, an engineer of Indian origin working in United States. TV9 (Telugu) news agency failed to comprehend the sarcasm in Dowrycalculator.com and wanted the cyber crime police to intervene and ban the website.