Subir Roy: The woman is smarter

OFFBEAT

When I got married and my wife turned out to be the much better qualified person, it seemed in the fitness of things. The reality was reinforced when I came to talking with my in-laws who laid great store by academics. My late father-in-law was a teacher in a famous engineering college and I was matter-of-factly told that my wife had come first in her MA class and had received some kind of a gold medal from the university.

I had the sense not to brag before him the way some of us from our college, famous for its snobbery, did "" making a fetish of flunking in the maths subsidiary and consequently seriously threatening the main BA degree in economics. But inside I was quite clear about the wisdom of the lyric of the Jamaican song, so popular in those days, which loudly proclaimed that 'the woman is smarter'.

As married life rolled by, reality soon confirmed what was there on degree certificates. My wife quickly put my finances in order and miraculously even produced a little surplus, for the first time in my working life, which was not insignificant as I had married quite late. Over the years, I have been fascinated by the way her career has gained momentum. She moved in her chosen field, from one NGO to another, taking with her a loyal and growing team, the way figures in the advertising world move by splitting agencies and carrying a chunk of the accounts and talent with them.

I have long attributed some of the 'woman is smarter' and "" where it matters "" tougher reality in my family life to the culture of my part of the country, but it needed a chance evening's jocular bantering for me to realise how mainstream this has become in most of the country, or at least the south and the east.

The ball was set rolling, the mood of the evening defined, when one couple was a bit late and eventually, Ravi arrived by himself to say that Hema would follow. She was getting late as she was travelling from the other end of town where she had gone to deliver a convocation lecture at one of the most prominent schools in town. In the old days, it would more likely be the husband who would be held up by an important office meeting that refused to end.

As the evening progressed, we realised we were witness to an emerging phenomenon. By pure chance the three women who had at one stage got into a huddle of their own were all women of substance. And what was fascinating was that the men in their lives went well beyond accepting this with good grace, they actually celebrated it.

The mood of the evening was reinforced when Satish, a thoroughly friendly and easygoing person, said he spent his time at a small management consultancy, which was not well-known. Poornima, on the other hand, had made it a habit of playing senior fiddle at industry bodies. Hers was the well-known public face, and he was cool with it. I realised how cool he was when he saw the Old Monk bottle and preferred it to the scotch, saying, 'Ah, my favourite drink and brand.'

But this was only the beginning. When Hema finally arrived, Ravi raised the jollity several levels by declaring, with the expansiveness that comes with the second peg of whisky, that he and such like ought to declare Dennis Thatcher the patron saint of men who stood by overachieving women! We all knew the distinctive consultancy he headed but the iconic firm at which Hema was a bigwig until she too branched out on her own was another matter.

This mood of celebrating the wives clearly got the better of us when we realised that one of the guests also wanted to join the Dennis Thatcher fraternity when he hardly qualified. Jairaj was the public figure and the other Poornima was undoubtedly adored by all those who knew her but that circle mostly consisted of friends.

Poornima didn't even reside in her own kingdom, present as she was most of the time in another town where she ran a classy school promoted by an investor in whose venture capital firm she earlier worked! The manservant did a good job of feeding the husband, but when she was down for the weekend, she naturally issued the standing instructions. Irrespective of who they were to the rest of the world, Jairaj had no problem in naturally acknowledging who the bossini was in their universe.

As the group dispersed, relishing the taste of mishti doi which had replaced the earlier domination of the fish fry, I wondered if we were on to something fairly new and significant. These families with professionally successful mothers mostly had grown up children who were well-placed. So the woman's career had not taken a toll on family life. Three cheers to Dennis Thatcher's boys, I thought to myself, not a little high.

subir.roy@bsmail.in