She earns double what I do and her dad just asked who pays the rent?

A one-lakh salary in Bombay changes the math on a rented flat entirely, and her father is asking because he wants to know who carries the weight when the deposit and the broker fees come due. You are making forty thousand, which means a traditional fifty-fifty split of a decent two-bedroom in the suburbs will eat up more than half your take-home pay before groceries or electricity. When her dad brought it up over tea and your parents went silent, the room froze because everyone realized the income gap is no longer just a detail on a biodata sheet. You need to put actual numbers on the table before the wedding dates get locked in, because waiting until you are sitting in a newly rented living room with different expectations about contributions will turn every monthly bill into a silent resentment. You can look her father in the eye and say that since her income is significantly higher, a proportionate split like sixty-forty or seventy-thirty makes actual financial sense, even if it feels deeply uncomfortable to say out loud to your future in-laws. Speaking up about money now feels awkward and risks making you look defensive about your earnings, but staying quiet guarantees you will spend the first year of marriage drowning in bills you cannot actually afford. Have the conversation with her alone first, away from both sets of parents, and figure out a budget you can sustain on your salary alone if things get tight. If she and her family expect a lifestyle pegged to her income rather than yours, you need to know that now, while you still have the space to decide if this match fits your actual life.