Thank god, Women's Day is over. It's time for macho world leaders to show how it's really done

Okay ladies, you’ve had your day. Now get back to your kitchens and let us guys take over what is rightfully ours. When I say guys, I am talking about real men. Men like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Jacob Zuma and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States has had enough of the professorial Barack Obama doting on his wife and daughters. Europe has turned against motherly Angela Merkel welcoming the Asiatic hordes. India is sick of the non-violent leaders of our freedom movement who have received too much credit for too long. Luckily, we have charismatic icons to replace them, patriots like Subhas Bose who brought the British army to its knees by winning famous victories like, well, I can’t recall any right now, but I’m sure there were a few.

For real men, everything begins with the body. There can be no suspicion of frailty or deficiency there. Marco Rubio, a contender for the Republican nomination, insinuated that Donald Trump has a small penis, which would, of course, disqualify Trump from the presidency. Luckily, The Donald clarified the allegation was false in his inimitable style. “I guarantee you there’s no problem," down there, he said at the top of a nationally televised debate. Plus, he confirmed he is 6 feet 3 inches tall, not 6 feet 2 as Rubio had stated. Every inch matters in measuring a man’s leadership ability.

Exchanges like the one between Rubio and Trump demonstrate what sets men apart from women. I mean, can you imagine a spat over breast size between two female politicians? It would never happen, because, because women stupidly pretend boobs are irrelevant in judging leadership.

All about anatomy

Men are far less cagey about their chests. Narendra Modi declared it took a chhappan inch ki chhati to make Gujarat what it was. It’s true that Modi’s waist appears to be closer to the 56-inch mark, but that’s only because the Indian prime minister’s chest, like Obelix’s, has slipped a bit. Modi would have qualified as simply the chest among heads of state and government had it not been for Vladimir Putin, who counters doubts about the future of the Russian economy by removing his shirt to ride a horse in Siberia , swim in icy water, go hunting, or fishing.

Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya, is such a fan of Putin’s, he emulated his idol by wrestling a crocodile. Interestingly, the man who edited Kadyrov’s crocodile adventure was later hired by Zee News.

Real men are a gift to the world’s females. Narendra Modi may have abandoned his wife and lied about her existence in electoral forms, but he showed his romantic side by singing, “Every breath you take, every move you make, I’ll be watching you,” to a certain young lady at the heart of the scandal that came to be known as Snoopgate.

Rough and tough

Benjamin Netanyahu, he of the dreamy baritone, saw his popularity ratings skyrocket after he confessed to sleeping with his married assistant while his third wife was pregnant. The episode cemented his place as a guy’s guy more than his achievements as a commando ever could.

South Africa’s Jacob Zuma has spread his affections even more freely than Bibi. He has 22 children by ten different women, four of whom are currently his wives. In the past, Zuma admitted having unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV-positive, but pointed out he showered immediately after to avoid catching the infection. Could anybody be better qualified to lead the nation with the world’s most serious AIDS problem?

A Cape Town artist named Brett Murray painted a portrait of Zuma titled The Spear, which focussed on the organ defining the South African president’s authority. Zuma was displeased, complaining Murray painted him as “a philanderer and a womaniser”. To counter this obvious calumny, African National Congress activists vandalised the painting. That’s the code of machismo: never hesitate to strike back at one’s critics with every available weapon.

Chinese president Xi Jinping, who has accumulated so much power that he is called Xi Dada, is never above a bit of dadagiri. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey routinely puts political rivals as well as journalists in jail. No opponent of Modi – from Teesta Setalvad to Sanjeev Bhatt to sundry NGOs – has gotten away without paying a heavy price. Trump’s ruthlessness in his campaign to make America hate again proves he’s cut from the same cloth as these illustrious peers.

Masculine bond

Had the entire world been led by tough guys like Modi, Putin, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Zuma and Trump, half our problems would vanish overnight. Sure, Netanyahu and Erdogan had a spat over a relief flotilla headed for Gaza, and Turkey recently shot down a Russian fighter on its border with Syria, but those are quibbles. Look at how India-Pakistan relations have been transformed by Modi’s personal touch. Inviting Nawaz Sharif to Delhi and then a chai pe charcha in Lahore was all it took for cross-border terrorism to end, and for the dispute over Kashmir to head towards resolution. That’s what a masculine bond is capable of achieving – two men looking each other in the eye, telling it like it is, and hammering out a solution to intractable disputes.

Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, get lost in the weeds, poring over files and understanding the minutiae of every subject under the sun, as if details ever mattered to true leaders. Sure, Clinton has cultivated some macho swagger, but everyone sees through its phoniness. If you really want swag, picture Bill Clinton in the Oval office getting a blow job from an intern while on the phone to counterparts elsewhere in the world who, for all we know, had interns of their own servicing them. That’s chutzpah, that’s what men do, that’s what Hillary will never manage. That’s why Bill Clinton’s popularity was at a record high when he left office, that’s why Trump will show Hillary her place this November, and that place won’t be in the White House.