Passing the Parcel

The choice of topic is rather random however, is one that has intrigued me right from my school days.

 We often hear about ‘khaandaan ka vaaris (family heir)’ , ‘family trait’ , ‘it’s in the gene’ and many such phrases which imply that we are rather proud of what we are passing on to the next generation. Sociologically, the explanation is – we all love ourselves the most in this world and subconsciously want to leave atleast a trace of ourselves in this world. We achieve this by having children and training them to be the person that we like. We, of course, like to believe that we are offering the best training to our children, oblivious of the fact that they would never become our replicas. Never mind, if in the process, we pass on some weaknesses too! To the extent that sometimes even the preaching/ teachings of the father and the mother in the same household are out of phase with each other. Obviously, each one claims that the better one is theirs.

I often ponder if this is it about inheritance. Is inheritance only about the gene? Well, there are enough examples in the society where the actor’s children are actors and engineer’s children are engineers. But in many cases, they are not have as wise as their parents even though the parents tend to pretend they are. I don’t mean that DNAs are redundant, they do play a vital role but there are enough and more examples where the children do not resemble their parents or do not even behave like them. When the children are in the wrong and, we know that they have picked up the trait/ behavior from someone in the family, do we boast about inheritance? We certainly don’t! Sheepishly, we hide it.

There are two scientific terms that elucidate this concept better: genotype (the genetic make-up of an individual) and phenotype (the environment in which the individual is made).

In the genetic hierarchy, grandparents or even great grandparents play an imminent role. There can be genotypic or phenotypic characteristics which are suppressed in a couple of generations and gets re-expressed in the 3^rd or the 4^th one. Going by the phenotype of each generation, the context of learning a particular habit changes but the content remains the same. The means/ tools change with time, but the end remains the same. For example, the grandfather may have been very tall, the father can be short and the son yet again may be very tall. The grandfather may have shown resilience by walking 10 miles to school every day while residing in a village, the father may have been a little more privileged and the son today maybe going to an international school in a car every day. But the resilience may have been passed on in terms of what the child is achieving, by walking that extra mile as compared to his peers.

Whenever I failed to learn/ do something on my own, my mother would say “Everything cannot be spoon-fed or told or handheld through, one must learn from what’s going on in the environment”. Needless to say, she demonstrated ample examples of that. As a kid, I never understood what she meant as I always felt that she should salvage me but somewhere deep down the thought has stayed with me.

In the context of inheritance, ‘learning from the environment’ adds another dimension. This includes, learning from peers, learning via observation - from whatever is happening around in the house, school, society, even learning from other’s mistakes and successes, or, from any other factors that may stimulate our brain. An interesting anecdote - in the city where I grew up, the ‘Newspaper wala’ had a typical manner of delivery. Since he had too many at hand and limited time, he would roll the paper into a tight, thin cylinder and tie it with a knot of jute fiber. He would then throw this roll accurately into the balcony of a specific apartment, even on a 3^rd floor atleast from a 300- 500 metres distance, while he was still on his bicycle in slow motion. That was  more difficult than the dart board. If he made one mistake, he wouldn’t be paid for it. To me, that was an example of a skill learnt for survival. It doesn’t matter what one has learnt through books, what matters is the application of what is taught to us.

Application of existing knowledge/ skills/ behavior is also inheritance. For example, a child as a daughter or son may not have been interested in cooking or may not have ever directly learnt cooking from his/her mother. But as this child grows to become a parent, may unknowingly start adopting those recipes for their children.

Sometimes, inheritance is not just from people, it can be from nature, it can be from the weather around us. People who grow up in natural surroundings learn from plant or animal behavior, and imbibe their methods of dealing with hardships. People from the hills or different in behavior from those who have been brought up in the plains. While those growing up in a metropolis lack that element and get opportunities to learn more from human behavior or, though myriad activities they are engaged with.

To me, inheritance is the summation of every learning, every impression…during the formative years of a person’s character. Having said that, character is also shaped by  inheritance, which in turn is dynamic. It changes with every person, every generation. Even two siblings of the same household do not pick up the same traits from their parents or, their environments. Sometimes, phenotypic inheritance may far outweigh the genotypic inheritance, and we may not even realize it. The goal therefore, should be to pass on the good elements to our children and enable them to pick and choose the balance on their own. So that they can in turn, bequeath the legacy of ‘good’ inheritance to their children. Let us all remember - What we pass on to children as values, culture, behavior, skills, temparent etc, is what they inherit and make their future society. Let us help them make it a good one.

A folklore that always comes to my mind in this context – A lion cub got lost in a jungle and joined a herd of goats. They began to raise him. Eventually, he started bleating like them instead of roaring, his gene didn’t matter. He had to be shown himself as an image in the pond by his fraternity to remind him who he was. So, once again, we are not just made up of what we are born with but what we inherit.

I am grateful to my parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, neighbours, who, in all these years, have contributed to my inheritance. I am proud of it and like every parent, am trying to infuse my ‘inheritance’ into my daughter. Needless to say, she will carve her own identity and redefine ‘inheritance’ on her own terms.