Soul Kadee

The latest issue of The Week magazine carried a rather well-written article on the quandary of the Indian male, and his inability to cope with growing demands from career and home.

The reason for this crisis has a lot to do with the way roles for men and women have been rapidly blurring in the reality of urban India’s double-income homes.

The Indian woman who seems to easily multi-task, juggling family, home and hobbies, is now demanding more from her man, including better sex.

And the Indian male doesn’t seem up to the task. Unable to cope, he is rapidly succumbing to addictions, alcohol, depression, heart-disease and suicide.

The Indian man is struggling to face his new reality. Ad-guru, Alyque Padamsee (who seems to juggle loads of pretty women quite well), and artist, Jehangir Sabavala, blame it on the Mama’s boy syndrome.

I agree wholeheartedly. A lot of Indian men (not all of them… I happen to know some wonderful, emancipated ones) are still tied to their mother’s apron strings.

Indian men don’t want a wife. They want a mother. And you can see it everywhere - in their demands, their neediness, their narsicisstic attitude. In Hindi cinema that stereotypes the suffering, enslaved wife as the ideal Indian woman.

If mother dear is not in the picture, the wife is expected to substitute, taking care of the kids, bringing in a pay packet, and serving up hot meals to hubby-dearest when he returns home. I know of marriages that have collapsed when the wife refused to comply with such insane demands.

I’m no man-hater, but I AM completely repelled by men who are codependent, needy, clingy, demanding, and think it’s their right to take a woman for granted - as if all she’s good for is to feed him, bear his kids and warm his bed at night. These sort of men just make me go “Ewwww!”

I’m glad to learn that women are standing up and demanding their rights to be treated as human beings, and have their needs met, even in the bedroom. But if men are dependent on women for food, sex and companionship, women also tend to depend on men for their emotional needs.

Indian society breeds and encourages codependence. Defined by author Robert Burney as outer or external dependence, the condition of codependence is about giving power over our self esteem to outside sources/agencies or external manifestations.

The blogger at Living With Samsara defines it as “any relationship in which one or both partner/s turn over their own autonomy for well-being into the hands of the other.” She lists some characteristics of a healthy relationship, including

• Knowing that your well-being is your responsibility
• Taking responsibility for your own feelings
• Taking care of yourself irrespective of what’s expected by others
• Allowing any person to have any thought or feeling they have without taking it personally
• Learning to say “No”
• Having boundaries and a respect for others’ boundaries even if they don’t

She also recommends Melody Beattie’s books on overcoming codependence.

Codependence can be either in the “taking” (narsicisstic) form or the “giving” (caretaking) form. In general, men lean towards the former and women towards the latter, although that’s not always the case.

Neither situation is healthy - for either sex. Since most relationships in India tend towards one or the other, dysfunctional relationships seem to rule here.

While I champion independence for Indian women, I also stress that Indian men take responsibility for their own needs. The key to discovering if you’re in a codependent relationship is to ask yourself if you can manage your own needs were the other person no more in your life.

Robert Burney notes that

Codependency is about having a dysfunctional relationship with self. With our own bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits. With our own gender and sexuality. With being human. Because we have dysfunctional relationships internally we have dysfunctional relationships externally. We try to fill the hole we feel inside of our self with something or someone outside of us - it does not work.

Margaret Paul’s book, Inner Bonding: Becoming a Loving Adult to Your Inner Child, is an amazing resource for creating a better relationship with your self and avoiding the trap of codependence.

Being independent is about respecting yourself. It’s about being whole and complete, so that you have more of yourself to share with your partner. Its about striking a balance between independence and intimacy.

A healthy relationship is one in which two people decide to be together not because they NEED each other to feel complete, but because they ENHANCE each other’s lives.

These concepts are alien to Indian men, who grow up in a cultural milieu that still advocates well-defined roles for men and women in relationships.

But I know many good men who love to cook for their partners and share household chores. Who don’t expect their partners to be responsible for their feelings.

Who take responsibility for themselves and their needs. These are the sort of men I love and respect. The truly emancipated Indian male!

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