While the men get more cynical about love and romance, novels with pink covers continue to appeal to the target audience - read women

THE ARGUMENTS started when I wrote my first novel — a true-blue bodice-ripper. Seriously, to hear the husband and the son go on about it after I showed them the first draft, you’d have thought I’d killed someone, rather than written a romantic novel.

“OMG!” said the husband, who was making his presence felt on Facebook.

“What am I going to tell my friends?” moaned the son. “My mother writes porn?”

“It’s not porn,” I defended my baby — the newly-born one, that is — spiritedly. “It’s a romance!” “That’s just porn for women!” said the son. The spirited gene does find its way forward.

“It’s wishful thinking,” said the husband more sedately. He has not been brought up by a mother who has the bodice-ripper gene in her. ‘Women are not like those you find in those novels, neither are the men. Mere fairy tales!”

“Every woman needs a fairy tale — if not in real life, then between the pages of a book,” I retorted.

“But why would a tycoon marry his cook?” asked the husband, hitting below the belt in direct reference to the above-mentioned bodice-ripper.

“Because she’s different from all the women he’s met until now.” I tried to be patient. After all, these were mere men. “She’s traditional at heart. And she’s beautiful and perky and full of life.”

“Aha, redundancy!’ said the son the lawyer at once. “Perky implies full of life.”

to think I had nurtured this, this parasite inside me for nine months and an extra week!

“And she’s not his cook — she merely works in his office canteen. And that’s also because she loves cooking and really needs a job to look after her family.”

“Well, what does she see in him?” asked the son, on a trot now. “He seems such an ass.”

“He’s strong and masterful. And rich, too.”

“And that’s what women want?”

“Yes!”

“Even those of my generation?”

My antennae had begun quivering. This conversation seemed to be taking a turn towards an argument that would soon include phrases such as habeas corpus and locus standi and much worse. But the argumentative Mallu gene in me, so carefully nurtured in my flesh and blood sitting in the chair before me, was not ready to give up yet.

“Yes,” I said, “A woman wants her man to be handsome, witty, charming, but she also wants a man who will pamper her, who will take care of her every need, who will protect her and love her — and for most of that, the man needs to be rich.”

“I would call that mercenary,” said the son. “I knew it! All women are mercenary!”

I had no immediate answer. The son may be grown up, but no parent is seriously convinced their child is not still impressionable, and the argument I was taking up was not travelling along a track conducive to producing a happily-ever-after scenario for the young man in the room.

“It’s not quite as mercenary as I’ve made it sound, perhaps,” I began slowly, belatedly trying to make amends. ‘See, it’s about biology (when in trouble, turn to Mother Nature!). A girl will automatically be attracted to a man who is not only attractive, but also able to provide for her and her children. So, a rich man is attractive biologically, too. But when a man is attracted to a girl, he looks at her body — breasts, hips, legs — again because those are the signs of fecundity; signs that she will be able to continue his lineage, propagate his genes further.”

The son gave me one of his famed “Really Ma?” looks. The husband stopped himself from also doing so just in time. But he stepped in husbandfully to divert the argument and asked, “So what’s in it for the men then? It seems to me like a lot of giving and very little getting.”

But the son has never been one to be diverted easily. Besides, he’s so used to parental diversionary tactics he can probably bat them away in his sleep. “So what you are trying to say is that it’s okay for men to ogle women,” he said, stressing each syllable in an exaggerated drawl. “They’re merely checking them out for, what did you say, fecundity?”

The husband and I choked. Good lord, that one was straight out of left field.

Memories of equally tangentially drawn conclusions — and their extremely disastrous results — from the son’s childhood flashed before our eyes.

I bravely tried to change the subject. “Well, my little book has been accepted by an e-book publisher,” I announced. “It will be out soon.”

“I suppose you’ll have a pink cover,” said the son. I paled, imperceptibly I hoped. I had just approved the cover and it was, well, pink! (Note to self: request colour change asap.) My complexion change did not go unnoticed, however.

“Ha!” said the son in his best trying-notto- say “I told you so” voice. “I knew it! Well, I must say it would probably suit your hero to a T. He even needs his grandmom to tell him he’s in love.”

“He’s a typical man,” I retorted, stung to the quick now. “He’s a typical man who can’t see what’s under his nose,” I said with a straight face. Both men were ominously silent.

The son was the first to recover. “Okay,’ he said, “So your hero is rich and handsome — every woman’s dream come true, right? So how come your heroine hates him till at least half-way through your book? And what makes her suddenly change her mind?”

I sighed.

Sometimes, it’s a tough job being a woman among so many men.