The tradition of partners being carefully selected by the two families remains hugely popular, but in a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches.
Sheela, an office worker in New Delhi, said that when her daughter announced she wanted to marry her boyfriend, she immediately hired Paliwal.
“When my daughter said she’s in love, I wanted to support her -- but not without proper checks.”
Her team handles around eight cases monthly.
“The man said he earns around $70,700 annually,“ Paliwal said. “We found out he was actually making $7,070.”
It is discreet work. Paliwal's office is tucked away in a city mall, with an innocuous sign board saying it houses an astrologer -- a service families often use to predict an auspicious wedding date.
Hiring a detective can cost from $100 to $2,000, depending on the extent of surveillance needed.
It is not just worried parents trying to vet their prospective sons or daughters-in-law.
“It is a service to society,“ said Sanjay Singh, a 51-year-old sleuth, who says his agency has handled “hundreds” of pre-matrimonial investigations this year alone.
“There are people who want to know if the groom is actually gay,“ she said, citing one example.
That includes financial probes and, crucially, their status in India's millennia-old caste hierarchy.
In the past, such premarital checks were often done by family members, priests or professional matchmakers.
Arranged marriages now also happen online through matchmaking websites, or even dating apps.
'Basis of lies'
Layers of security in guarded modern apartment blocks mean it is often far harder for an agent to gain access to a property than older standalone homes.
But he stressed his agents operate on the right side of the law, ordering his teams to do “nothing unethical” while noting investigations often mean “somebody’s life is getting ruined”.
Khatri has used tech developers to create an app for her agents to upload records directly online -- leaving nothing on agents' phones, in case they are caught.
Surveillance tools starting at only a few dollars are readily available.
The technology boom, Paliwal said, has put relationships under pressure.
But she insisted that neither the technology nor the detectives should take the blame for exposing a cheat.
“Such relationships would not have lasted anyway”, she said. “No relationship can work on the basis of lies.”
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