It was right to name the first fully-animated character in an Indian music video ?Lady Chatterjee?, ?who chats all night?. Women in Calcutta date most on the Net.

Fropper.com, a dating site with more than a million members, says women from Calcutta make up 30 per cent of the city?s user base, ahead of the gender ratio in the other metros. Calcutta is the only place considered in eastern India by the portal, which carried out a database analysis recently. In western India, 25 per cent of the members are women; in the north it is 22 per cent and in the south, 20 per cent.

?We get an impression that women from Calcutta are more Net savvy and educated. They are also willing to experiment with newer media of communicating,? says Navin Mittal, business head, Fropper.com.

But if online dating skills are any indication of technological advancement and daring, there is bad news for the city on the whole.

Other cities date far more vigorously. Mumbai is on top, contributing 19 per cent of the portal?s members, Delhi next, at 12 per cent, Bangalore contributes nine per cent, Chennai seven per cent ? and Calcutta a poor four per cent. It is in a tie with Pune and only above Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.

The portal says the average Indian online date is aged between 18 and 35; earns between Rs 1,00,000 and Rs 2,00,000 per year (42 per cent of its users); is likely to be a technical person or engineer (23 per cent); is likely to be a graduate (52 per cent); and is overwhelmingly single (78 per cent). But 15 per cent are married and still ready to mingle. The average date is also overwhelmingly male, however much the Calcutta woman contributes. The overall male-female ratio is 75:25.

Many women don?t feel comfortable on the Net. ?It neva works out coz no one trusts a stranger,? mails a young female Netizen. ?It is like a blind date,? says a second-year student of St Xavier?s. A 23-year-old adds: ?I met a man in a chatroom and we decided to meet on Park Street. He sounded like a hunk, but when I saw him, I passed him by while he was making calls to my mobile. It was in silent mode.?

There are issues that are not gender-specific. A 21-year-old, who started to date online ?for adventure?, says she got bored within three weeks.

But thanks to the presence of men, who seem to have less problems, online dating is growing. Mittal says membership of his portal grew 100 per cent over the past year.