Greed

Not just the tree, but the forest You know that Imelda Marcos feeling! 'Dil Mange' More shoes. There is something so pure about it. It's like a force of Nature. It's like a bee that fits from one flower to another, crawling down its petalled throat and plundering it of one more drop of nectar. Do you wonder that bees are always so busy with their lives? They are positively humming with the power of greed.

That's what it's about - power. Imelda said she was doing it for her country. It's the instinct the Queen Bee has for the hive. No one looks down on the Queen who takes charge of the hive, or anthill. The strong women of history who have taken charge of the hive, or anthill.

The strong women of history who have taken charge of their country, their people of their destiny tend to get a bad press. Cleopatra, Catherine of Russia, Evita to Eva Peron as she was known, even Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen. They are inevitably defined by the men they have slept with rather than by the strength of their dreams. In their minds however, they are all on top of the action.

Each one of them set her own agenda and went for it with a sense of purpose that was far greater than any mere man-made set of rules about what is fair and what is not and the process blazed a fiery trail that has set the imagination of the world ablaze. They did not care about the consequences of their choices; they were willing to make the difference.

They were willing to reach out and be greedy for all that life had to offer them, plus a little more. For that if course, is one of the problems of being greedy, that great souls are always warming us about you.

You can be consumed by your greed. Not that it stopped Cleopatra when she unfurled the purple sails of her golden barge at Actium and decided that she would stop at nothing to conquer the Roman world. Not that it stopped Evita when she sang, "Don't cry for me Argentina!" Or Phoolan Devi when she looked down the barrel of her country-made gun and shot the men who had raped her village.

Victory was the reward, no matter how short-lived the moment. We remember these women not because they may have failed in the end, but because they were filled with the will to dream.

Greed gives you the power to dream. It gives strength to the woman who walks that extra mile to collect a head load of firewood for her family so that they may live a little better for a week or even just a day.

It slips into the eye of the needle held by a Rabari woman who stitches another cushion with the patterns that have been handed down to her by her mother and grandmother, so that she may provide a better education for her daughter.

It hides quietly sometimes in the dark corners of a house, under a mattress perhaps, or a pot standing in one corner of a kitchen, in the form of a small bundle of notes, or coins that she can sometimes feel the texture of freedom that money can give her.

It's not just the rich and powerful women of history who have the right to be greedy. It's every individual who wants a little something more out of her life. The woman who raises her hand and joins a literacy class.

Or the simple village woman, for whom Malavika Sarukai, the famous Bharatnatyam dancer, has created a dance - The story of Thimakka depicts her intense longing for a child that she could never bear. So instead she decided to plant one tree in her village, then another one, until one day, there was a whole forest of marvellous trees surrounding her!

So, while we may laugh at the follies of wanting too much of the wrong thing, the shoes of Imelda Marcos are a reminder that the Butterfly Lady of the Philippines at least had a lot of fun while it lasted.

Greed CAN transcend the person and the moment and become something greater than either.

Femina