Women are born empowered: Juhi Chawla

I never understand, why time and again, year after year, women have to prove to the world and put up an argument for their case saying that they are as strong or equal to men. Women are born empowered. So, which part of this do we not understand? Life is simple but we like to complicate it unnecessarily.

Simply put it this way. Imagine a Hindi film or any film without any heroine, a star cast of all men or imagine a home without your mother/ sister/ wife. Imagine the world if there were no women. Could we carry on? It's that simple. Women are equal to if not better than men and extremely important.

Look around the planet today. Most of the people in high positions, the presidents, ministers are run by men largely and that may change but for the moment this is how it is. This reminds me here of a little joke that if God were to come down on earth today and see the mess we've created for ourselves. He would stamp his feet, ask who's the manager here, look around and so really who's responsible, who's running it?

And here again comes to mind a joke about a husband and wife. They have a successful marriage going and then the neighbour comes around. He asks, 'How do you guys do it, it's wonderful, you're getting along very well? The husband says, ‘See, my wife and I have struck a deal, she takes all the small decisions and I take all the big ones. So the neighbour is very impressed and curious about the decisions she takes. So the husband replies almost instantly, 'What school will the kids go to, which car do we buy, the decoration of the house, what are we eating today, which movie are we going to see, how much are we going to spend and on what we're going to spend and small things like that.

So the neighbour's impressed and inquires about the big decisions that the husband makes, he says things like, 'America should interfere with Middle East and settle their problems, analyse if China's economy is booming or should we trade with China or not, you know big matters like that, that's the stuff I decide.'

There was this another interesting piece that I read which just hit me right. I felt like this is what happens in every household, certainly happens between Jay and myself. So, at night, suppose a couple is watching TV and the husband says it's time to go to bed now. What does he do? He turns off the TV, he gets up, plonks himself on the bed, turns off the light, maybe checks his phone and then goes off to sleep.

In the same situation, if a woman says, 'I'm going to bed now', what does she do? She'll get up to go to the kitchen, make sure that things are set and ready for the next morning, she'll check whether water in the dish for the dog, she'll probably check the main door, she'll check on the lights whether they've all been turned off and if she's me she'll make sure that the Wi-Fi has been turned off. Then, she'll peek into the children's room to check on them and see if everything is in place, if their uniforms are ready for the next morning, their shoes are cleaned, she'll get to her bedroom, list out all the things that she needs to do the next day, she'll turn out the lights and then go to sleep.

Nowadays, I feel there is talk or vibe where it seems it is not just enough for a woman to be a home maker. If she's just running her household, it's not enough. She needs to be a career-oriented woman to prove to the world that she's as strong or as good as a man. I feel that's kind of odd. Are we undermining what goes into running our household or what makes for a happy home?

As told to Anupama Ramakrishnan