Steaming hot phulkas

Chetan Bhagat wrote an article a while ago on working women, expostulating the advantages of having one as your wife.

It was addressed to the Indian male and chided this man for always opting for 'garam phulkas' at the end of the day.

There was criticism from some quarters on this article. In fact, as I am scouring the web now for a link to the original article, I am amazed at the volume of criticism and the controversy it generated. I also cannot find the article anywhere. It seems to have disappeared into thin air like the steam from those garam phulkas.

Anyhow, the denunciation is mainly from well-educated young mothers, who have taken the call to stay at home and are deeply incensed by the insinuation that there is anything wrong with simply-making-the-phulka and not sharing in the bringing-home-of-the-atta.

While Chetan Bhagat is not my favorite author by any stretch of imagination, he has mass appeal. He has done, what we call in soap-n-shampoo universe - market development. He has compelled the non-reader to read.

What these women up-in-arms are missing is that they and their modern families constitute around 10% of India's population. The vast majority who live in towns like Amritsar, Jabalpur, Bhagalpur, Faridabad and even deeper down in smaller towns and villages, do still frown upon women working, having financial independence. And these families always opt to get their sons married to women who can make an excellent phulka and a mean paratha.

India today is in a state of flux. A vast country like this with such a fragmented demographic and lifestyle profile cannot change overnight and all together. That is why you find high income, well-educated families in the metros no different from those anywhere else in the world. The ones with less exposure in the same vicinity would be living vastly different lives based on a completely different set of principles. Just last month, I met some girls in Delhi, who spoke about how they wanted to ensure they have well-paying jobs - for the specific reason that their in-laws and husbands should think twice before asking them to stop working post-marriage.

Girls in Amritsar say in a matter-of-fact manner that in their families, going out and working is looked down upon. In fact, these girls are happy that things have progressed from a previous generation to the extent that they are allowed to study for as long as they want (but largely the Arts and not any vocational or application-oriented courses). There is an undercurrent of being constrained, as they are not absolutely cut-off from what is happening elsewhere in the world, but the tension doesn't go deep enough for them to defy these mores.

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The point is that far too many young men, even as of today, feel that the place of a woman is at home. That she is first a wife, a mother and then anything else. And most importantly, that she does not or should not have the option to decide for herself.

Well, Chetan Bhagat speaks to this demographic and psychographic. Like no one else.

Except perhaps Salman Khan. In fact, I would say Salman's appeal goes even further down the income ladder if not deeper into the interiors of the country. So if ever the Indian government is looking for a poster-boy for creating awareness for women's rights and such in a soft, humorous, yet compelling manner, then it is Salman they should call. After all, with all this re-branding from his days of hits-and-runs, hitting women, poaching, and generally Being out-of-control to Being Human, he deserves more than Relaxo Chappal.