Recently, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and his pop star wife Suchitra appeared on the celebrity chat show, Rendezvous with Simi Garewal. The discussion focused on relationships and both had much to say on the importance of trust, separate careers, long separations, mutual respect and so on. All in all, the picture that came through was of perfect politically correct gender equality. There was just one issue on which the answers clashed. Jarringly. When asked if either would drop whatever one happened to be doing if the other said `I need you', Kapur immediately thought of the various factors (cast, schedule) that would make it impossible. His wife said simply: She would. Interesting. They said women could not do the things men did. Most notions have been destroyed over the years. Women have shown that they can divide and multiply, drive cars, fly planes, enter battle as well as men. Yet on one score the weaker sex remains `weaker' and it is on the subject of priorities. Women, it appears, by their ownor others' admission, are softer, more emotional, maternal. And, in the end will put spouse/family before all else. It is now time, the Kapurs notwithstanding, to put that notion firmly to rest.Recently, the guns blaring over Kosovo obscured a touching human tragedy happening in another part of the world. Michael Aris, husband of the Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi died of cancer in Oxford. News of Aris's terminal illness was known for months - he and their two children have met Suu Kyi only infrequently in Myanmar where she has been confined for the last ten years; the couple's last meeting took place three years ago. Aris's application for a visa to meet his wife one last time though was turned down by the Myanmar authorities. It would be better, they claimed, for her to go to him. The catch was of course, that she might not be allowed to return. She refused to leave. He died. The authorities then relented and offered her permission to return if she wished to attend the funeral. Lacking faith in theirassurances she refused again.Did she do the right thing? Is there a right thing in a situation of this kind? On the one hand, one assumes, were her own personal emotions and those of an ailing husband and children soon to be left fatherless. On the other was the strong possibility of being forced out of a struggle she has spearheaded against a regime responsible for suppressing democracy and wreaking immense cruelty on her people. Either way the choice could only have been a terribly hard one.The significant thing is how very differently the choice is perceived for men and women. Assume for a moment that Nelson Mandela decided somewhere in the middle of his imprisonment to give up the battle to be with his young impetuous wife. Or suppose that Mahatma Gandhi stepped out of the freedom struggle to concentrate his energies on mending fences with his son or to look after the ailing Kasturba. In what light would such actions have been viewed? With consternation? Disappointment? Indignation? Would these menhave been perceived as anything but wimps, sell outs? On the other hand, even in 1999, had Suu Kyi decided to go to her husband's side, knowing full well that it could be curtains for her battle, I would hazard a guess that the world's sympathy, approval even, would have been with her. By doing otherwise she has shown unintentionally perhaps that women are as capable of great personal sacrifice and single mindedness, as men. If, as is increasingly happening, we are going to examine the personal conduct of leaders so minutely, isn't it time we lauded them for their personal sacrifices as well. That has not been the case so far. We are used to looking for extreme evidence. If one looks at accounts of history or even the coverage of contemporary events one usually sees movements being measured in death tolls, in laws or concessions won, in prison terms and torture but rarely, if ever, in terms of emotional cost. The denial of daily pleasures that the rest of us take for granted: love, companionship anddomesticity.Perhaps it is time to stop measuring a fight only by what it achieves. Time to look at the emotional cost and the sacrifices that leaders, men or women, make. Where one may fail in actual results, the other inspires in human courage.Amrita Shah is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai
