Women are from Venus, Men are from… Delhi. Not the geographical location Delhi but Delhi as a euphemism for power and pelf and all that comes along with it. That grab bag of frantic, ruthless, testosterone-driven, adrenalin-pumping, ulcer-forming ambition to shimmy up the greasy pole, be the top dog, the alpha-male, the big banana.
Power centres breed that kind of behaviour like a contagion. Remember Washington during the Senior Bush regime or Dubai in the 1980s? Guys swaggering around main chancing, hustling, networking, schmoozing, making pacts with the devil, going in for the big kill? Their women objectified, reduced to painted dolls; no amount of Prozac enough to hide the tremble in their hands or Botox to hide the sadness around their mouths.
Most of urban India is like that these days. The epicentre is Delhi, with Mumbai a close second, but I can bet you the madness has spread to B- and C-tier towns. This frantic rush to get a piece of the action.
One of the collateral damages of reform and the economic boom is its impact on matters of the heart; on the way Indian men treat their women.
Last week, at a dinner party in Mumbai, I witnessed a group of men having an epiphany as they gathered together, eyes glazed, almost drooling around an investment banker rumoured to be on the inside track of the markets. When the said banker dished out the latest dope on a huge scrip I thought someone in that crowd would orgasm. It was the closest that this lot had probably come to sex (their idea of it) in weeks I remember thinking.
I saw one powerful man’s eyes light up when he was introduced to a woman, but the fact that she was young enough to be his daughter, unattached, Caucasian, wearing a very short-skirt and on the make herself, may have had something to do with it.
The rest of the elegant, married, 40-something women were ignored or worse, patronised.
Show me a CEO who knows how to romance or even pay attention to his woman and I’ll show you someone who has opted out, more or less. Between their dashes to Delhi, their power lunches, their multi-billion deals, their fending off hostile takeovers and their eye on the Forbes rich list, it’s not only their women that get short-shrift, it’s their own souls.
We do not need a phone tap to know how a powerful politician talks to women, or an IPL cheerleader to blog that she’s treated like a piece of meat. (Of course, it can be argued that the woman on the other side of the phone line talking to the politician and the IPL cheer-leader has placed herself in a position that debases her); but I think there is enough evidence to suggest that as more of our men make it to international billionaire lists, clinch mega-deals, dominate world arenas —the more they need to spend a little time thinking on why they are doing it, what really matters in their lives and whether it’s worth it. And pay attention to their women.
A psychotherapist I know in south Mumbai has funded the last five of her European cruises just on counselling achingly lonely and insecure bankers’ wives — the gals with the Birkins and the baubles.
No time for tenderness when your tender’s overdue, or for sex when the Sensex is rising…
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer
