Ramblings

This month, Bijoy is all gung-ho about woman power

TO BEGIN WITH I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE concept of Women’s Day celebrations. Just hang on a bit before you start scripting a hate mail chain to crucify me – I can explain. As far as I know, women are equally capable of doing everything under the sun that a man can do. Prime examples are my mother, wife and daughter – all three of them supremely capable humans whom I will trust my life with. When you are in such company, you wonder why there should be a day dedicated to them. Women are not like the panda that they going to be extinct soon, they are not like AIDS that there needs to be more awareness about them and they are not at all like the environment that is polluted. Sure women were an oppressed lot without right for an opinion or franchise some time ago. But not any longer, right?

It is a no-brainer then that I do not understand why there are separate competitions in games like chess for women.

In the same breath, I love the idea of mixed doubles in tennis and badminton and always wondered how it would be to have mixed soccer games where half the players are from each gender. Even more so when it comes to motorsport. While it is exciting to see more women drive cars, there are not many who enter the field of motorsport. Is it because they fear that they cannot compete in a ‘man’s sport’? As a participant of rally raid events and as a team principal for Mahindra Adventure Rally Team, I have come across only a few women who have taken to rallying seriously. I do believe that motorsport is one field where women can do as well as men if they really desire so.

Those who remember Michelle Mouton will agree with me. In the fiery world of rallying in the 1980s Mouton took on some exceedingly capable men (Walter Rohrl, Juha Kankunnen etc.) and guess what, won against them. Audi may have taken her on as a team driver for publicity but our lady had other ideas. She won four rounds of world rally championships and came close to winning the championship once. She won the German national rally championship too. That's not all, she beat the existing record and won the Pikes Peak hill climb shaming some of the biggest names in motorsport. Millenials amongst you, please go to YouTube and watch her slither around the famed mountain in the Audi Quattro and if it does not give you goosebumps, nothing else will. She was as good as or better than many of her male contemporaries when it came to driving a rally car fast.

The argument that women cannot perform well in physically demanding sports is absurd too. Sure we have only had a scattering of women F1 drivers (Giovanna Amati, Maria Teresa de Fillipis, Lella Lombard are exceptions), yet we have had Jutta Kleinschmidt win the car category in Dakar of all things. Not the women’s category, the overall car category, mind you! If Dakar is not demanding, what else is?

So if a woman can drive in the extreme conditions of Dakar and win the overall title, gender equality has been achieved right? It is a resounding yes, in my book.

That brings us to the point I am driving at. As long as we continue celebrating Women’s Day we will be accepting the fact that women still are not as capable as men in many disciplines. The glorious women whom I have mentioned in the above paragraphs are proof that if they set their eyes on achieving something women can be successful at it. If they can do space walks, climb Everest and govern countries the rest should be a cake walk. Here's to girl power! ⌧

‘I love the idea of mixed doubles in badminton’