The choice of topic is
rather random however, is one that has intrigued me right from my school days.
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 3rd or the 4th
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 3rd 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.
