Back in 2011, when they were engineering undergraduates in Chennai, Damini and Dhruv (who are keeping their last names private, you’ll see why) watched the Indian Grand Prix on a laptop in their university corridor, sharing earphones as best friends. Cut to 13 years later. It’s May 2024. The two, now a couple, attended the Miami Grand Prix in the Ferrari garage, a shared dream come true.
Dhruv recalls the moment when he turned away from the action and moved to the paddock, which was oddly silent. There was Damini, down on one knee, ring in hand, asking him to marry her. She’d spent weeks planning the surprise, emailing the F1 teams and roping in F1 Experiences, the company’s hospitality arm, which positioned a camera crew to capture the moment. “I always wanted to propose. I never viewed it as the man’s responsibility,” says Damini, 30. “If both partners are equals in a relationship, then both have the right to do something special for the one they love.”
Dhruv, 30 was dumbfounded, but only for a second. “She is not one to sit around and wait for things to happen. It made sense that she took matters into her own hands, instead of waiting for me to pop the question.” Oh, and he said yes.
Are proposals the last bastion holding up the gender divide? Women now make the first move on Bumble, split the dinner date bill, reject regressive wedding traditions, make Reels about rejecting invisible labour, and hold out against in-laws who want grandkids. But popping the question in a heterosexual coupling remains an overwhelmingly male domain. Muskan Malik, co-founder of Mumbai’s The Event Troop, has helped plan 120 weddings over five years. She says that barely five out of every 100 couples admit that it was the woman who did the proposing.
{{/usCountry}}Are proposals the last bastion holding up the gender divide? Women now make the first move on Bumble, split the dinner date bill, reject regressive wedding traditions, make Reels about rejecting invisible labour, and hold out against in-laws who want grandkids. But popping the question in a heterosexual coupling remains an overwhelmingly male domain. Muskan Malik, co-founder of Mumbai’s The Event Troop, has helped plan 120 weddings over five years. She says that barely five out of every 100 couples admit that it was the woman who did the proposing.
{{/usCountry}}Put a ring on it
If Irish folklore is to be believed, women in the Western world at least have been proposing to their partners since the fifth century. On the modern calendar, February 29 is for reverse proposals – it comes once in four years, so chances are already slim. But around the world, the enduring assumption is that a woman proposing is an anomaly.
In 2022, 27-year-old Punjab-based entrepreneur and content creator Mrunal Panchal, got down on one knee at on Santa Monica Beach in California to ask Anirudh Sharma, also a content creator, to marry her. They’d spent eight years together. He’d already proposed. She’d already accepted. But Panchal wanted Sharma to experience what few men do: The joy of being intentionally chosen, “that feeling of someone asking you to spend your life with them”.
He was a little surprised, but loved the idea. “Both partners should feel free to make big gestures without worrying about what society says,” Panchal says.
Shraboni Bhattacharya D’souza, independent psychotherapist and counsellor from Mumbai says that as more women seek financial independence, higher education, and a job outside the home, “many refuse to perceive romantic gestures as a man’s responsibility”. Setting it up reflects assertiveness, emotional clarity, and a preference for direct communication over ambiguity.
A question of questions
Some women are ready for this. The world simply isn’t. Few wedding planners know how to handle the moment. Jewellers still orient their engagement-ring sales pitches to men. Family and friends wonder what’s wrong. When 29-year-old data analyst Divya Gupta passed a jewellery store on her evening stroll in Pune in 2024, she and her partner Shyam Madhani, 30, checked out ring designs on a lark. They bought two customised rings, and put them away in a cupboard.
“From that moment on, I began planning a surprise,” says Gupta. They’d been together since his birthday in November 2017. It seemed only fitting, seven years on, to propose on the same day. The plan included a surprise rooftop party, Gupta roped in Madhani’s sister and learnt a few lines of Gujarati for her proposal speech. “I wanted to give my best friend a memory for a lifetime,” she says. “Getting down on my knee for a man I loved also felt unusually empowering.”
Amidst the excitement came one backhanded comment. “Do you think he’ll do the same for you?” her sister asked. She didn’t respond. “I wasn’t proposing to get something in return; I was doing it to express my love for him.” When she posted pictures online, many people found the gesture odd. “It never crossed my mind that it was such a big deal to people until then.”
The silver lining: Even today, when they pass the proposal venue, Madhani smiles and repeats to her, “I do.”
Making a connection
Malik finds that interfaith couples are more likely to have women popping the question. Many of these tend to be love matches, and the couple isn’t cowed by family opposition or social pressure. “This inherently makes them more open to challenging traditional rituals.”
In Mumbai, TV screenwriter Charmaine Joseph (40) had been dating fellow screenwriter Faizal Akhtar (48) for three years, and wanted to take the next step in 2016. No candle-lit dinner. No rooftop party. She simply looked at him one evening, when they were sitting together at home, and said, “I want to marry you. What do you think?”
She had a Plan B. Were he not interested, she’d move abroad to study. He said yes and they’ve been married for eight years. They had a Christian ceremony in Jaipur, officiated by her brother, followed by a nikah in Mumbai. In a fitting plot twist, just before their Christian ceremony, Joseph got down on one knee, and officially popped the question to Akhtar. “Because, why not? I wanted to.”
Role reversals
Malik believes that the number of women proposing marriage is low not because they lack courage or confidence, but because “the sanctity of the relationship is celebrated more readily when the guy proposes”. Even when it was the woman who initiated the idea of marriage, families expect the man to stage a formal proposal as well, she says.
In 2023, Malik was working on the wedding of a Marwari-Rajput couple in Udaipur. The bride had already proposed. The groom had said yes too. Then, he suddenly felt compelled to stage an elaborate proposal of his own. His reason: “It is still the man’s job. And I am the man in the relationship.” She saw his move as less like a sign of commitment and more an expression of power. It was probably brought on by the fact that the bridesmaids were wondering if the groom loved the bride enough, given that he hadn’t been the one to pop the question. “Her proposal was not celebrated the same way.”
That imbalance also frames how both men and women experience rejection. “Men are often raised to see themselves as the ones to initiate relationships and propose marriage,” D’souza says. “As a result, a rejection may feel like a personal failure or even a challenge to their masculinity and self-worth.” Its why jilted men in India retaliate with an acid attack or some other public shaming, to save face. Jilted women, however, are shamed for wanting more than what’s given to them. “The refusal does not threaten their sense of femininity.”
It’s a lopsided view of happily ever after. Nonetheless women persist. The next time you’re at a wedding, pay close attention to who gets to steer the love story. The last bastion is a clear indicator of how equal the partnership is.
From HT Brunch, August 1, 2026
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