What Do Women Want?

Disclaimer, especially, to all the women of the world: No offence meant. Laugh this one also off!
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Before even the mildest of the woman-power advocates jump up in a chorus of objections, let this clarification be humbly submitted that the original title was indeed `What Do People Want'?  But, once the blog was completed and looked set, it was pretty obvious that most of the situations involved women demonstrating either, ahem, ambivalence or inconsistency about their current intent, future direction or past decisions.  This author realises, above all, that men are no geniuses in these matters, but being embodiment of laziness and inertia, they present such a scarce body of public evidence for an author to raise the same question about them with any authority.

Women are seen as intuitively better wired to be taking charge of problems, which are palpable in their eyes and mostly imagined in the perception of men; and earnestly looking for immediate solutions, which are badly needed from women's view-point and absolutely redundant because there is nothing to solve, in the eyes of men.  These God-given traits logically make for easier conclusions with women as protagonists, since men's imprint in such matters is seldom visible to the naked eye. This, it should also be clear to readers, is probably due to the fact that the male of the species generally just wants to be left alone to idle; not to be dragged into doing anything, if that is possible, so that they can really enjoy their limbo! Most men also spitefully imagine that what women want most is to throw some serious spanner into this specific machinery of the menfolk and jump-start them to do something - anything for that matter, like forcing them to stand up or move their limbs a bit.  Under the circumstances, this author made a judicious decision to leave `What Do Men Want?' for a future essay, hoping that time will provide incremental fodder, even on this flimsy subject.

Recently while travelling to Madras from Bangalore by the airport bus + turbo-prop plane combo (the bus seemed to cover 60% of the distance and the plane 40% - at least it looked that way), there was this hassled, young mother boarding the bus.  She was with one unhappy-almost-militant toddler tugging violently at her clothes and a wriggling infant on hand, struggling to balance the kids and a cabin bag.  There was indeed a man with her and one could reasonably surmise it was her husband because he was trying to look at all the others in the bus, certainly impelled by the humanitarian desire to help (anyone else, except his own wife and children).  A lady who was seated, got up and offered her seat to the harried young mother and her brood.   Even as I was appreciative of the yielder of the seat for her graciousness, the young mother reacted as if someone had stepped, with pin-point-accuracy, on her little toe.  May be, the idea of taking a seat offered by another woman, not much older than herself, did not appeal to her?? Because it showed she is a bit more vulnerable than the other lady?? Whatever the reason, she glowered at her good-Samaritan husband, barked him into the vacant seat and dumped the kids and the bag on him, all in one sweep a la Virat Kohli pouncing on a rapidly advancing cricket ball.  Then she stood very erect next to the other lady, as if she wanted to drive home a point (whatever that was), to the utter bemusement of those around. Of course, the husband was pretty pleased that he assumed a position he likes second-best (lateral would have been better), despite carrying all the baggage, including children.

What came flooding back into memory in this context was another scene from another similar airport bus. A techie-nerd (not all of them are that, let me state for the record), completely lost in his own world, blessed with a pair of unseeing eyes - no he was not blind - was occupying a seat.  An older lady was dangling by the strap above because she was too short, right beside him.  A younger accompanying lady was looking to evacuate someone and procure a seat, understandably.  She saw this techie and gently, with a smile, signalled to him to yield the seat.  The techie was probably close to attaining the software-solution-equivalent of nirvana in his mind, did not see the girl nor heard anything.  The embarrassed girl tried again, less gently, but to no avail. She then let out one bloody scream asking the guy to get up and boy, did he hear that!! Not only that seat, but a few more including the driver's, fell vacant in a jiffy!! And both the ladies occupied the seats, with the younger lady displaying dissatisfaction at the utter lack of energy of the men around her in terms of movements - justifiably so!

There is this husband and wife team, which should be the delight of any satirist. The husband seldom attempts anything more prolific than monosyllabic conversation within the confines of home, plainly because he has reached a state of self-awareness in which he knows he is not equipped to defend himself from the resultant reactions of the lady.  The lady's mouth is very rarely closed - she is either eating or talking or sucking in a deep breath in between those two activities. Most of the time, the subject matter of the virulent monologue is the husband's 'nincompoop' ways, catalogued with phenomenal precision as for content, right from the day after the marriage.  The perceptive reader may question why not from the same day!  All the revelries and rituals of the day prevented any form of real observation or extended communication on the wedding day, the author understands.

But when they are outside home in the midst of others, they want to pretend that both are very normal conversationalists, with extreme sensitivity to equal opportunity etc, even though the ground situation is an ill-kept secret.  The problem with this is that the husband woefully lacks practice and is like a two-left-footed dancer.  He cannot put tongue to palate without causing the wife to bristle and retort snidely.  Yet, he is not allowed to be quiet because she does not want the home-scenario to play out in public and paint a portrait of her as someone she exactly IS!  When a close friend noticed this terrible dilemma and spoke to the husband sympathetically for thirty seconds, the wife came hurtling like a bulldozer, keen to find out what all that phus-phus between the men was about!

Due to the offensive ways of over-weening, macho men, some women take umbrage at even the simplest of compliments or statements nowadays.  Sexist or condescending or patronizing, they say - the complimenter may have some ulterior motive.  Surely some of them do and perhaps this happens more often when the complimenter is not known well to the complimentee.  If a guy does not say something complimentary in some circumstances, he becomes a boor, brute.  This author would suggest a Supreme-Court-compiled list of compliments, approved by a thirteen-judge-bench (if they do not have enough spare judges for this, the government should appoint more forthwith; it can resume the fight with the Collegium later) that can be used in all situations.  Such a list should also mandate where the man should look while delivering the compliment, so that the woman does not misinterpret it, the look,  as leering or malignant in any other way. So what is required here is a complete move away from the natural to the artificially well-structured, dictated lines and at least the women may be happy.

When my dear wife saw what I was writing, she said I must include one item without fail - the utterly basic desire of women to walk around the streets, without feeling that ocular molestation has already begun and physical one is soon to follow.  And this should be possible, even in the dead of night, even when the woman is alone, even if she is sozzled and even if she chooses to be in an area known to be infested by animals masquerading as men. This author completely agrees with this Utopian vision and we should all work towards that.  But as of now, we are nowhere near that kind of ideal situation and women know that.  So, isn't it necessary for a woman to exercise sound judgement in this matter?  What is the idea behind willfully inserting one's hand into a snake-pit and wailing that one is bitten?  Yes, we can always beat that snake to death, but what about the damage done to you?  Can you wash it away?