Gentlemen – The New Endangered Species

A friend asked me to write this. He wanted a few lines...it became an article! Go figure! Anyway...I hope you enjoy...
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They say chivalry is dead and that ‘gentlemen’, as a breed, are extinct. I beg to differ. Chivalry ain’t dead, it’s just comatose and in the ICU while ‘gentlemen’ have probably boarded their father ship and gone back to the planet from whence they came. Or maybe they’re just hiding out in the bathroom with a smuggled TV set, watching hours of mind-numbing Test matches and James Bond flicks. Well, whatever the case may be, there’s not one to be spotted for miles around!

And if truth be told, I think it’s us superwomen who have scared them off good and proper! And we didn’t even need to show them the door. To preserve their sanity and their family jewels, they clawed through the walls to high tail it out of home and hearth. Seriously. Let’s sit back and review, shall we…

After years of male oppression, suppression and domination, we have finally broken out of the formulaic a-girl-is-born-to-get-married-to-worship-her-husband-and-give-birth-to-his-many-babies cycle. We have shaken off the patriarchal dust with a violent, Shakira-like flourish of our hips and stepped out of our keeper’s (read ‘Male’) shadow and into the light. We have trampled upon their innate God complex with Mother-Durga-astride-Her-lion like intensity only to establish temples in our glory in the form of designer boutiques and other places like the neighbourhood mall.

We climb corporate ladders with the grace of a ballet dancer and the skill of a chimp, often holding our laundry in one hand, a baby in the other and a grocery list dangling from our mouths. We can be Kamasutra babes in the bedroom yet Yashoda maiyya in the nursery, all the while keeping our CEO persona in the boardroom firmly intact.

Bras burnt and Wonderbras firmly in place, today we revel in our hard-won independence and god help the poor man who tries to get in our way. Like the mascot of our female tribe, Lady Praying Mantis, we just might bite his head off. Except, in our part of the animal kingdom, it’s called ‘bobbitizing’.

So, the last few gentlemen who were left ran off scared. “I am woman, hear me roar!” By the time we finished roaring, the poor dears were left cowering and unsure of themselves and their many intrinsic deeds and acts.

Were they still supposed to hold open the door for us? Or would we push the doorknob into their beloved nether regions for thinking us helpless?

Were they expected to always pick up the tab at restaurants? Or would we break the wine bottle over their heads for being so chauvinistic?

Was sending flowers still considered an act of sweet thoughtfulness and tender romance or condescendingly silly mush-mush?

And if they did lose their hearts to one of us, were they still expected to get down on one knee with diamond-ring-in-a-box and ask us to be theirs forevermore or were they supposed to wait for us to do it over an SMS or e-mail?

Poor guys. It’s no wonder they disappeared.

Gentlemen. The royal Bengal tiger. The Puerto Rican parrot. Water. Petrol. Precious, few and far between. And all in need of saving.