For all you care, you would probably agree that Mel Gibson had a jolly tough time in his search for what women want. This is a question that has been lately hogging much public space, the seriousness of the issue notwithstanding (or not standing). For instance, a section of the sunday magazine of a promiment national english daily that carries interview of major and minor celebrities always has a specific question addressed to its male interviewees-what would you do if you discovered that you have turned into a woman overnight? Let us not detain ourselves here with the details and diversities of their answers to the question. The point that must be noted ,however, is that suddenly everyone is keen to find out what women want, especially from those who are not women.
This is an important issue, a little like the bureaucrats who have never been to the villages deciding the nitty gritties of what ails Indian villages and prescribing suitable remedies. If this is indeed so, this is an innane exercise and would not take much time and space to establish its infertility. Paradoxically though the very fact that such exercies are exercising the minds of pandits and journalists and filmmakers is a powerful testimony of the productivity of their
(and our) poverty of thought and imagination. As far as can be made out, the Gibson movie, Subhash Ghai's inelegant Indian version of it and the questionnaire of the sunday magazine mentioned above can all be fairly dismissed as non-serious stuff. Herein lies the rub.
Because the whole thing is painfully true; women actually know fairly well what men want but frankly men have no clue about what women desire. Mars, venus and all that sounds impressive but offer no comprehensive solution. The quest of what women want must therefore be taken far more seriously. Is the stereotype that women run on emotions and shun logic true, for instance? Yes perhaps, but not the way we interpret. The right interpretation is yes, they have more emotional intelligence, the very thing that the management gurus rule would fuel corporate success tomorrrow. That means women know how to rally large groups around them better than men-nothing sways large gruops of people more than an emotional and emotive outburst of inspirational stuff. Men must learn to appear more vulnerable and learn to cry more eloquently, to cut a long story short. Money does not inspire those who have enough to live a good life and also those who are unlikely to accumulate enough to live a good life anytime soon. A Dream does. A dream that challenges them, no empowers them really, to run after an impossible dream. Don't forget that frail woman from Albania who landed in Calcutta half a century ago with nothing with her except compassion and built a multinational with a presence in 104 countryies in a matter of three or four decades. Compassion, and an impossible dream, then, is no less of a capital than hard cash. Women are impossible creatures-they are extremely logical and equally illogical at the same time. Deep down perhaps, they are logically illogical and talk men into believing that they are not logical.
As for long term planning and training, they are second to none. Each and every mother knows how to plan a CEO or an IIT-IIM graduate who would start making millions and billions after roughly half a century. The fathers supply the money-no even mothers do just as much-and the mothers implant the dream, grain by grain, into the heart and soul of their children and make sure that they eat, sleep and dream the dream so much that they make it come true.
Women are not handicapped, we men have doubly endowed them in trying to confine them within the domestic space. God has not been on our side either, she (and god is a woman for sure, or else she would not be so partial) has provided the capacity to give birth to babies. Frankly, women don't need men, but men are just helpless without women when it comes to making babies. Sperms may be banked, as it were, but wombs just can't, even if you rent one. Men , as far as I can make out, are faraid and supremely insecure-women have mastered the domestic and are now out to oust us from the public. We would not have minded, had we not been brought up on a false notion of cultivating pride on our capacity to earn bread for the family, and two, had we known how to run a house in the first place. Women, I admire you all and I would have to unfortunately live with the reality that I'd never be half as good as you already are. Fact is, even though we say movies like what women want are casual funny stuff, we have no other way to express our admiration for what you are. You know how awfully bad losers we men are.
This is an important issue, a little like the bureaucrats who have never been to the villages deciding the nitty gritties of what ails Indian villages and prescribing suitable remedies. If this is indeed so, this is an innane exercise and would not take much time and space to establish its infertility. Paradoxically though the very fact that such exercies are exercising the minds of pandits and journalists and filmmakers is a powerful testimony of the productivity of their
(and our) poverty of thought and imagination. As far as can be made out, the Gibson movie, Subhash Ghai's inelegant Indian version of it and the questionnaire of the sunday magazine mentioned above can all be fairly dismissed as non-serious stuff. Herein lies the rub.
Because the whole thing is painfully true; women actually know fairly well what men want but frankly men have no clue about what women desire. Mars, venus and all that sounds impressive but offer no comprehensive solution. The quest of what women want must therefore be taken far more seriously. Is the stereotype that women run on emotions and shun logic true, for instance? Yes perhaps, but not the way we interpret. The right interpretation is yes, they have more emotional intelligence, the very thing that the management gurus rule would fuel corporate success tomorrrow. That means women know how to rally large groups around them better than men-nothing sways large gruops of people more than an emotional and emotive outburst of inspirational stuff. Men must learn to appear more vulnerable and learn to cry more eloquently, to cut a long story short. Money does not inspire those who have enough to live a good life and also those who are unlikely to accumulate enough to live a good life anytime soon. A Dream does. A dream that challenges them, no empowers them really, to run after an impossible dream. Don't forget that frail woman from Albania who landed in Calcutta half a century ago with nothing with her except compassion and built a multinational with a presence in 104 countryies in a matter of three or four decades. Compassion, and an impossible dream, then, is no less of a capital than hard cash. Women are impossible creatures-they are extremely logical and equally illogical at the same time. Deep down perhaps, they are logically illogical and talk men into believing that they are not logical.
As for long term planning and training, they are second to none. Each and every mother knows how to plan a CEO or an IIT-IIM graduate who would start making millions and billions after roughly half a century. The fathers supply the money-no even mothers do just as much-and the mothers implant the dream, grain by grain, into the heart and soul of their children and make sure that they eat, sleep and dream the dream so much that they make it come true.
Women are not handicapped, we men have doubly endowed them in trying to confine them within the domestic space. God has not been on our side either, she (and god is a woman for sure, or else she would not be so partial) has provided the capacity to give birth to babies. Frankly, women don't need men, but men are just helpless without women when it comes to making babies. Sperms may be banked, as it were, but wombs just can't, even if you rent one. Men , as far as I can make out, are faraid and supremely insecure-women have mastered the domestic and are now out to oust us from the public. We would not have minded, had we not been brought up on a false notion of cultivating pride on our capacity to earn bread for the family, and two, had we known how to run a house in the first place. Women, I admire you all and I would have to unfortunately live with the reality that I'd never be half as good as you already are. Fact is, even though we say movies like what women want are casual funny stuff, we have no other way to express our admiration for what you are. You know how awfully bad losers we men are.
2 comments:
Great observation. At last we have a man who have solved the mystery called Woman.
and who is that man? you have his phone number or any other marker of identity? it is credulous of you to even imagine that such a man can ever exist!
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