Man-U-Script! - Humour

Suman Chopra, is well known to Sawf readers for her no nonsense moderate view. Wife of a senior Air Force Officer currently based in Moscow, Suman peroidically steals time from her family and social responsibilities to enrich the Sawf columns with her views.

His-tory is replete with examples of how man man-ipulated, man-euvered, man-aged and man-ifested himself in everything of the 'mankind' to dominate the woman. Over two millenniums ago man scripted the ancient Hindu document the 'Manu-smriti' to explain how man must put the woman in place. The document is well known for its misogynist views. Thousands of miles away where English language was being written, man was no less clever, and made sure that he retained himself in every position of significance and even retained himself in the word 'woman' and 'female'.

Why must there be an 'Isle of Man' to live on, and 'man to man' be frank talk, or a 'man of letters' be a scholar, and a 'mentor' be a wise counselor with no similar equivalents for a woman. There can be Master or Bachelor of Arts but no Mistress or Spinster. Why must 'man hours' and 'man power' be the only measure of work, and a 'mandate' be a command from superiors? Why can't there be a 'She woman', only 'He man', and there are no similar equivalents of 'show man' or 'specimen'. Have you ever heard of queen maker, only a 'king maker'. Man 'in-her-its' all, but has most magnanimously left the poor 'her' in the central position. He takes a high position in the 'mansion' and 'manor'. Why this male-volence and these bad man-ners?

There were some areas of course he gave her the place of importance. When it came to dying, it was the 'widow' who came before 'widower', and 'femme-fatale' has no equivalent dedicated to the male. Nor can the word Virgin be applied to man. When it came to work of course he happily created a 'woman Friday'. Inspite of all his mechanization, by mistake he landed up in man-iac but more than compensated it by making a woman a 'miss' so that all her life she can keep missing all the good things, miss the bus, 'near miss', 'mistake' and more recently she was also in a missile'. He has 'miss'used her in man-ifold ways. When things became a mess up he put the blame on her in 'She-mozzle'. How he retained her in the 'Hero' is difficult to understand, but he did not take long to equate heroine to an intoxicant. He even tried to her-metically seal them. She is in the 'Sheep' and she is part of the 'Herd', how unfair. To compensate them some how, they were given the status of the 'better half' and the fairer sex.

In the lighter vein, he called her a woman, so that she could 'Woo-man'. And when it was time for her difficult days, he called it 'men-arche' or 'man-o(h)-pause'. He further got into the woman's domain by being part of the man-i-cure, even the mannequin, and what is worse he went into ladies gown in the manteau. What have the men got to do with the men-u or is it that they cannot men-d their men-tality.

Amongst this man made man-ia there has been found, a long hidden in a remote hill village of southern China's Hunan province, a secret language uniquely scripted by the woman for the woman. Developed hundreds of years ago by Chinese peasant women who were denied formal education and were subjected to exploitation by men, Nu Shu is still used by nearly 250 thousand women in this her-mitage. Are the women going to 'her-ald' a new era, or is it too her-culean a task?