Women are the most powerful beings in the world
but only in the kitchen.
You are the lucky one.
You did not have to face my grandmother, or my mother, or my sister, or my wife, or my daughter.
The first two might have cleaned their kitchen using you, if the fancy struck them.
Let me share a story that I remember from when I was 8 or 9 years old.
The most powerful policeman in India used to be a character called the Director, Intelligence Bureau. Under Nehru, the Director IB was a particularly powerful, particularly feared man, a man named B. N. (Bhola) Mallik. On that occasion, he and the head of the state police, the Inspector General, were house guests of my parents up in the north of the state, near what every amateur strategist called the Chicken's Neck, the Siliguri Corridor.
Bhola Mallik had a pronounced tendency to ball-rag people he didn't like. He didn't like the IG, so there they were, sitting in the drawing room, drinking tea with my mother, and Mallik kept on, and on, and on needling the IG, who was sweating and decidedly uncomfortable. I hung around clinging to my mother, watching open-mouthed at a situation that was pretty ridiculous even to a child. My father, being outranked hugely, sat there pale and grim, studiously examining the glass in the French windows.
All of a sudden, my mother decided that it was time to intervene. She leaned forward, smiled beautifully at the great man, and said,"You are supposed to be a great horticulturist. Tell me, Mr. Mallik, what should I do for my roses to take?" Mallik immediately got the point, changed the topic, and the temperature eased off by at least five degrees.
Kitchen! Hah! My mother was the descendant of a long line of landowners, and could be very feudal on occasion. My father was a very powerful man - towards the end of his service, even the ministers feared him - and he was very careful to keep on her right side at all times.
@Nilgiri
