Marriage was never a priority for Sureshan, a 49-year-old businessman in Payyavur, Kannur. In his youthful days, all he wanted was to make money and build a home. Today, Sureshan owns two houses but lives alone in one of them. The silence, he admits, has become overwhelming. There could be a glimmer of hope for him. He has an entire panchayat searching for a prospective match. 

If panchayats in Kerala are indispensable for everything from birth to death, Payyavur panchayat now does more than registering marriages. It runs a special initiative to hold a mass wedding event that has captured the attention across Kerala. Sureshan is one of over 3,000 men who figure among the hopeful applicants.

The Payyavoor Mangalya scheme has been envisaged to help single men and women, especially those struggling to find matches and get them married with the panchayat’s support. The response was overwhelming: more than 3000 applications arrived in just weeks. But there was one glaring imbalance. While men applied in droves, only about 150 women came forward.

For people like Sureshan, the initiative is a window to a new life where they needn't be alone anymore. “There is a deep sense of loneliness now, especially after my mother passed away. That is why I want to get married. I don’t have any demands, I just hope to find a good match,” he says. 

He has never used matrimony sites, depending instead on brokers. "But most of them were only after money. Many times, I was rejected because of my age,” he shrugs.

Panchayat president Advocate Saju Xavier, who leads the initiative, admits the disparity in the number of applications and responses has been both striking and worrying. 

Earlier, he explains, marriage brokers were the go-to solution. “They would keep following up until matches were fixed. But today, brokers are hardly to be seen. People from affluent backgrounds can register on matrimony sites, but those from lower-income groups, say an autorickshaw driver, often don’t bother. They know they won’t get matches. Once they cross a certain age, even their families give up. That is one reason why we have so many lifelong bachelors," he says.

While focusing on men, the panchayat also receives applications from widows who wish to remarry under the scheme. “Even if they want to remarry, they cannot say it openly. That’s where we come in,” Saju says. In just one month, the scheme has registered thousands of men and a handful of women. Two marriages have already been fixed. “We hope once these take place, more women will apply. We are even planning campaigns in Karnataka to increase the numbers,” he adds.

The reasons for the imbalance are rooted in social and economic change. “In many rural areas, after Plus Two, only the brightest students go for higher education. The rest take up jobs as drivers, carpenters, and goldsmiths. But here lies the problem. With fewer women around, a woman earning ₹8,000 a month may not want to marry a driver. Most girls do nursing or professional courses, move abroad and land well-paying jobs. Naturally, they are unwilling to marry men with lower incomes. And since there are fewer women, they get plenty of proposals anyway,” Saju points out.

College students, too, often enter relationships during their studies and are not in the marriage pool. Through a tie-up with the Single Women Welfare Association, the panchayat has managed to bring in some women applicants, including retired teachers, government officers and women seeking second marriages. The age of applicants ranges from 35 to 77 for men, and up to 68 for women.

Panchayat member Rajani Sundaran says the scheme has also opened a door for those often forgotten by traditional matchmaking systems. “For second marriages and for senior citizens whose children have abandoned them, we are receiving applications. Often, this happens because women go outside for work, while the kind of jobs men do here don’t match their social standing. That’s why in this initiative, we have ensured there are no demands and no religious barriers,” she says.

Among the women applicants, many are seeking second marriages. “We have both employed and unemployed women, from retired teachers to government officers. Once we identify suitable matches, we simply share contact numbers with both families, and they can take it forward from there,” Rajani explains.

What began as a welfare measure has quickly become a mirror reflecting Kerala’s shifting social fabric, migration, education, economic disparity and changing attitudes toward marriage. For men, the initiative has rekindled hope. For widows and seniors, it is a chance to start afresh.