Womanly wisecracks...

Here's a question.How many times in your life have heard the dialogue "ek aurat hi doosre aurat ka dard samjh sakti hai" or similar equivalents in other languages, in soaps?The answer, I'm quite sure, is a gazillion.

For those who don't really follow the national language, the line literally means "only a woman can understand another woman's woes".

Utter crap.

It would survive only in soaps where actors are too busy looking for reasons to hysterically howl and do justice to that damned bottle of glycerine they emptied into their eyes at the director's insistence ("More .More emotion, I say!").

The truth is most women can't stand each other.There are the exceptions of course.
I know guys really raise their eyebrows and protest when they're told this. ("But you gals have so much fun together!").To you all I say, well there's a lot more going on apart from what you see on the surface.

Simple case in point.I did half my schooling in an all girls convent and half of it in a co-ed .The convent emphasised discipline, a fact thats quite understandable given that most parents sent their daughters there to "evolve into ladies".Ahem....yes.

However, I doubt if I learnt anything even remotely lady-like.They tried really hard to make us all cut our nails short,polish our shoes till they sparkled, sit with our knees together and ankles crossed ("A proper lady never displays her underwear!").The result?Most of us ended up becoming rowdy things who very effectively acted demure whenever Sister Bernadette was around.What a waste.

We also learnt the womanly art of sarcasm, something no man can ever beat us at.

I carried the knowledge of that spiteful art to co-ed and found I didn't really need it there.Why?Because the girls in co-ed were too busy giggling,blushing and acting coy, all for the benefit of the boys.But the moment a dispute came up, ("why did you smile at him when you KNEW I was trying to flash my dimples at him for the past one hour???"), claws were displayed and the yowling could be heard in the entire corridor.

Then fate put me in an all girls college.This experience was slightly better since I did find friends there (the exceptions I mentioned). However, just like you can't taken Rome out of the Romans, you can't rid a woman of acid comments and back biting. The proof was everywhere. Gang wars in class (the non violent types), prominent students vs other prominent students, one committee vs another,even lecturers!!!

I thought it'd all balance out at work.Ridiculously innocent of me to have thought that.

A woman without some amount of spitefulness is, I suppose, like a bodyguard who cries for his mommy everytime he hears a sound.Pointless.

Sru was right.Women just cannot get along with other women.

All the scathing observations apart,given the choice,I'd still be a woman anyday :)