What woman wants..
After a rather busy couple of weeks I had some break. I decided I would watch some old Hindi movie. While scrolling, I stumbled upon Abhiman. A successful playback singer marries a simple unassuming woman from a small town, who is also a very talented singer. Unaware of world of playback singing and fame she gets drawn in by her husband who encourages her to be a professional singer. Gifted, in short time she becomes popular and surpasses her husband in fame and success. There starts a drift in the relationship. While he loves her, it gets hard for him to see her as an equal or better and she, a woman who got drawn in only by her husband and still wants nothing more than his love; comes to a place where she cannot see a way to return back to him.
I had seen this movie many years ago while still in school and was never fond of it actually. Raised by a set of parents who never discriminated against me for being a girl, I would not understand why this would be so hard for a man to see his loving wife move ahead in career and also, why would she seek his approval, and why she would still love him after how he treats her! As I saw this movie come up while scrolling, I got curious. I did not remember how it ended. I would think that like all Hindi movies, they would just hug in the end and the movie would end, not answering if she returns to singing and how that unfolds for them years in (see, movies stop where reality begins) But to my surprise the movie ends with him caressing her as they sing together for the audience.
I felt happy I saw it again. Having lived as a grown woman I can understand the movie so much more now. For most of us, women of my generation, when we worked, we held jobs, which are different from careers. Like Sheryl Sandburg writes in her Lean In, we took steps back and inched back when kids were growing up, when in-laws were aging, when husbands were rising corporate ladders. We accepted someone has to and that, that someone would be us. When I see around me I see many talented friends who could have been CEOs and successful business owners and while they are successful at work they are not even close to where they could have been if they were born as men. And they are still happy.
They say that behind every successful man there is a woman. It is more true for a woman…we need our man to support us, cheer for us. Yes we want our man to let us lean on him at times of need, but we need him more at the moments of achievements. Most of us don’t want to end up alone just because we are really good at what we do and for it to scare away the person we love. We also don’t want to be apologetic for our success, to have to walk on eggshells in fear of hurting the male ego…life would be so much simpler if we don’t have prove, that in spite of what we can do even alone, we do want to be with you.. and it is out of our choice and not out of need that we want to be with you…and that has to be sweeter.
The reason why I like this quote I shared at the beginning is many times strong women are seen as something negative, something unnatural, something intimidating. Where many times it is just unfounded insecurity of people around her. We seek a society of gender neutrality. Many of us don’t want special treatment for being woman either. We know we cannot have it both ways. Just last week we celebrated International Women’s Day. All we are asking is not to penalize us for being good at what we do, for striving for high achievements, for believing the sky is not the limit. And we want to hold on to your hand as we move up… just like we have been doing for you, all these generations.
