WHAT WOMEN WANT?

By Sadho Ram

Let me guess… a good life? A rich husband? A perfect man (the one with six pack abs)? Happiness with lots of chocolates? Nail-polish maybe?

Hmm…

Well, I’ve known a lot of women in my life, like for example… my mom, my sister, my girlfriend, HER girlfriend (Yes, after one full year of dating her I came to know that she ALSO likes women). After this incident I often wonder that… do I really know women?

I mean it’s not tough considering men and women happen to be made of same organic materials but it ain’t any easy task to do (to know WHAT WOMEN WANT).

Their chromosome and our chromosome do not really match.

My girlfriend… she use to say that –

‘You know, Sadho, I like you a lot, but… I donno why… I don’t WANT you’

I would then look into her eyes and look deep… deep enough to see if… only if I could somehow know what really she WANTS.

But as luck would have it… she used to close her eyes and I would miss out on the rarest of opportunity to know at least what one WOMAN WANT.

-Sigh-

But the case with my mother was different. I knew what she WANTED. But she never really got what she always WANTED.

When she was alive… all she WANTED was the love of her family… her husband, her kids and a few more people around her.

She did everything that a woman is supposed to do… sometime… she did even more, but love… ah, she never got this one thing, never.

My sister says she WANTS to see me happy. That’s so nice of her, that she thinks of me so dearly. She knows what I want but once again I have no clue as to what SHE WANTS?

A few village women I met last year while travelling to north, told me that all they WANT is that their husbands to stop drinking and beating them. They also said that they WANT to see their son become good man (not like their father).

But this is all they want for other people who are related to them in one-way or the other. What about themselves? I asked them… so one of them said, looking up in the sky, -

‘Humara kya hai, who khush toh hum khush’

And I could sense the substance in her voice (I am not suggesting that this is what she WANTED)… there was this pureness (of being a woman)… which said –

­‘She is the kind of woman who would gladly sacrifice for the happiness of her family… that family who doesn’t really give a damn about her happiness’

And that’s what my mother did.

Although it would be wrong to call it sacrifice, as she WANTED to live. She WANTED to see me grow young. She WANTED to listen to me speak in English (yes, this she WANTED very dearly). She WANTED to see her daughter get married. She WANTED to grow old with her husband. She WANTED the love of him… that love which she so desperately needed… in order to survive.

But none of it… absolutely none of it… she got.

A wife WANTS love of her husband. A daughter WANTS care of her mother and support of her father. A girl WANTS… well; she WANTS so many different things.

But do anyone ever wonders that WHAT DO THE WOMAN IN THEM WANTS?

Indira Gandhi WANTED to bring a revolution (though I don’t know of what kind).

But did she get it?

And Mona Lisa now probably WANTS the world to stop analysing her simple smile.

Will she get it?

The answer is… No.

WHAT WOMEN WANT is often not important to the world, because the world hardly give it to THEM!

There have been lots of cases… like the little girl in my colony, who comes to pickup rags daily, WANTS to go to school. But she never gets to do that.

My maid, whose husband is in jail (for raping another woman), WANTS the world to stop looking at her through her clothes and into her fair skin… as if she is for all to feast their thirsty eyes.

Last I heard about her… she tried to commit suicide.

Material want is always there, but does it fulfil her from within? It might for a while… but on a long run… the attraction of it… would just fade away.

So it’s not material pleasure that all she wants.

Well, I guess I’ve some rough ideas as to what she WANTS…

Light of the day with her family, Dark of the night with her man, Sundays with chocolate ice-creams, Mondays with another flavour, Small gossips with her friends, Bed tea from the hands of her husband, to be pampered when sad and to be loved when mad!

A walk in the rain with an old college friend, An hour in the park with her dog, to watch the sun rise while standing in the midst of mountains covered with fog!

There are many things that SHE WANTS more than the years she lives.

But she gets less than what SHE WANTS… less than the decades she lived.

And so no matter how much I (man) claim that I (man) know WHAT WOMEN WANT… seriously… I've (man have) no clue as to WHAT WOMEN WANT!