Memoirs of a Geshia

I recently read Memoirs of a Geshia - it came highly recommended to me by a cousin, and, I had caught a few scenes of the movie and was intrigued enough to try the book. Golden has indeed done a good job, but other than the few instances of writing brilliance, I thought the plot was pretty mundane and to a certain extent predictable. But no doubt, it gives you a fascinating glimpse into the Geshia world. There were many places in the book where I caught myself thinking 'only a woman can be sensitive enough to think like this' and that brought me to a startling realization - most books that I have read, in fact, all books the I've read where I identified with the characters as a woman, were written by men!!! Be it Khaled Husseini, Paulo Coelho, Vikram Seth or S. L. Bhyrappa - I've always felt that no one could understand a woman's emotions better than these guys. That led me to another thought - how have the men that I've met been.

Well, almost all the men I've met have been very very far from the picture that these authors' writing gives. May be these authors are also like all other men except when they write - selfish and self centered. Not to say that all men are selfish rascals, but most men are like this one guy I had the misfortune of meeting. The way he spoke to me about himself and his wife, made me think that he must be the greatest man, and the greatest ever husband that lived on the face of the earth - I mean, what man will take care of a wife stricken with RA, in a city like Chicago, where any domestic help is so exorbitantly costly, and take care of all the cooking, cleaning, shopping et al, and the wife too, and nurse her back to complete recovery over 5 years from a debilitating disease like RA??!! Has to be God!!

And then, the bubble burst - I had the chance to speak to the wife and yes, I was just a fool who reeled in all these fantastic fairy tales! He was just the average selfish a******, worse actually - he was the ultimate hypocrite who beat the poor woman, like her RA wasn't painful enough, and played every controlling mind game in the book until life became unbearable enough for her to do what every woman does - finally, at long last, when it is almost, but not too late, recognise that she is strong, and stand up and have the courage to ignore him and get on with life! And he did what a man like him knows best - try and protect his image of respectability in front of society at all costs, and find himself another woman caring enough and stupid enough to love him and take his tortures!!!

Seriously, I've heard and seen so many such stories in the past year or so, that I wonder if I can still manage to trust a man.....