Men and women are basically different, whether we talk about clothes, interests, pastimes or what have you. Even though there has been a tendency in recent times for both genders to do jobs traditionally associated with single genders, the division of labour between the two has been fairly consistent till now. Jobs traditionally done by men have been taken up, as though by challenge, by some women. Tasks generally associated with women have tended to be avoided by men, though here too the line cannot be always drawn too clearly. Mahesh Dattani, the Indian dramatist, has dwelt on this subject with some distinction. Self-respect and social convention have been behind the general tendency to segregate on the basis of gender.

Writers, however, are a different ball game. They manage to write of the other almost like the other. Writers would not like to limit themselves to their own genders. To know about your own gender alone is to know about just half the world. The one who can enter into the other’s experience is the successful author. Thus whereas the non-writer can afford to be indifferent to the nature of the experience frequently encountered by the other gender, a writer cannot. A woman may have little interest in the various kinds of revolvers and pistols available but she would have to develop the interest if she wants to write a scene in a novel where men are discussing revolvers and pistols. Similarly men may not be interested in the best kinds of lipsticks, or the quality of dress materials used in the making of blouses and gowns but they would be required to know them if they are to show women discussing the material used in the clothes they are wearing in a particular scene.

The writer should be curious to know about secrets of life and living principles. A character in Shakespeare says: “In Nature’s scheme of secrecy a little I can read.” That is exactly what the writer should be doing – trying to go beyond surface appearance into areas on which life is secretly perched. The writer cannot ignore what the other gender secretly desires, on what motivation he or she will have the next moment. The writer’s imagination must help him to travel into the unknown and un-experienced domain, where the Creator has been quietly travelling ahead of him. Writers of fiction, if they are to make a mark, must have that godlike quality of including everything in their field of awareness. They need to be all-knowing as far as possible and all-seeing. The man who would be a successful author must not be shy of peeping into a woman’s bag, imaginatively if not actually. The bag is a euphemism, of course. They should be able to “see into the life of things”, where even people are included in the list of “things”.