Reading arundhati roy

The unkempt woman
Messy hair, unflattering clothes
Wears no makeup,
Couldn't care less
Smokes beedi and drinks local
Exceptionally foul mouthed
Scorns male attention because
She is focused  on her work
On behalf of the disadvantaged
Ageing and yet attractive
To the point of obsessing 

Multiple men for life

Does she even exist in real life?
Or am i foolish even to ask that
From a work declared to be fictional?

Somehow she makes me feel like
My life ks worthless
If i cannot be any of it

Despite that i find her highly attractive
And admirable and would fall for her
But i am not the normal man
Of the subcontinent
(Or even the world, for that matter)

Such men do exist in real life though,
Where they are as mythologized
As in the writer's imagination

But it will take centuries
Of such autobiographical
(Or so it seems)
Projection by women writers
(Men too, project the strong
Idealistic and committed heroine
But they are pretty and not ageing)
For the idea to really catch on
In real life, i think

I would applaud it when it happens
The sooner the better,
So that i too can shave my head and
Let my eyebrow grow and
Still be considered attractive 

But i don't think it is happening
In my lifetime at least