NOTHING fills me with dread more than the annual Asian Women of Achievement awards.

Don't get me wrong, I know that the recent awards were devised with the best of intentions, ie to show other Asian women out there that there are role models who can achieve under difficult circumstances. In other words, if they can do it so can you.

But the whole thing just makes me feel more inadequate than ever. Unlike the archetypal women of achievement who can go smoothly from the delivery room to the board room like Nicola Horlick, (mother-of-five banker) I hanker for the days when women had nothing to prove except the size of their child-bearing hips.

Where's the equality in having to go out to work and cook the dinner when you get home? And now, judging by the state of the Asian community in matrimonial matters, the whole thing has got completely out of hand.

In the old days when seeking a nice girl to join their family, make tea for guests, perhaps give a bit of company to their son, prospective in-laws gazed at their daughter-in-law lovingly holding their hennaed hands (well, for a few minutes at least). Now the only reason they do it is to see if it contains a fistful of dollars.

As well as being drop-dead gorgeous, having graduated from Oxford or Cambridge with a First in law or medicine you are expected to possess an impressive bank balance.

Gone are the days when prospective in-laws looking for a suitable girl for their sons would simply look at the length of your hair (v.long) or the colour of your skin (like Persil, the whiter the better). But now they want someone more beautiful, more educated and best of all, with high earnings.

Mother-in-laws want daughter-in-laws who can keep their sons in a manner to which they are accustomed. So-called modern families brag about their daughter-in-laws jobs.

'She earns £35k, you know!'.

'Well, our Bahu earns double that! And she fries her own samosas!'

And girls, it is our own fault. We wanted equality, we wanted rights, we wanted independence. Call me old fashioned but I hanker for the days when a woman's place was in the home.

And I am not the only one. It used to be the case that if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen but more women are abandoning their careers and getting into the kitchen. If I were in charge of the women of achievement awards I would applaud the women who wear saris in rainy weather without getting the hems muddy.

I would celebrate the women who wear flip flops in snow and don't get hypothermia and best of all the women who can make perfectly round chapatties.

Come to think of it, any woman who can show me how to combine a job with looking after a child and not have to be in bed by 7pm would be amazing. It's not much to ask for but in the topsy turvy world of Anila Baig, that would be one hell of an achievement.