Adap-tension

Wikipedia describes the reason for extinction of Dinosaurs as “Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event”. Roughly translated, it means that the mighty did not survive because they could not adapt to the changing climatic conditions on the earth. The point I am trying to make here is that essentially, adaptation is the key to survival.

Research on the human species suggests humans have survived and will continue to do so because they are intelligent and adapt.

Why then does a sub group of the human species find it so difficult to adapt?  

The Great Indian Mother in Law (GMIL) is a group which has traits strikingly similar to the dinosaurs. They are powerful, menacing and love to spread their dominion over another sub group - the hapless daughter in law (DIL). Quite like the dinosaurs that were the dominant species: powerful, mean and menacing, the GMIL is extremely influential among the human race.

Dinosaur	GMIL
Mean	Mean
Dominating	Dominating
Arrogant	Arrogant
Dumb	Cunning (fox-like)
Extinct	Surviving

The above comparison lists out their common traits on the one hand and their dissimilarities on the other. While the parallels I have been drawing are pretty obvious, the differences are more subtle. While dinosaurs were known to have brains the size of peas, GMILs, being from the Homo sapiens species, are intelligent creatures in all walks of life. But when they are faced by their DIL, they exhibit a level of intelligence, far beyond the ordinary.

They seem to have higher usage of the grey matter in the brain as well, in dealings with the DIL. Social scientist will agree with me in my observation that the controlling streak in them peaks and they are at their meanest and most aggressive in this situation. Now, if you have studied the rest of the Animal Kingdom, you would expect such behavior when the creature is under attack or feels threatened by the presence of a predator.

Axiomatically, the GMIL’s behavior in the presence of DIL alludes to their controlling nature and the fact that they fear their dominion being threatened by a new entrant in their sphere of influence. This results in vociferous criticism, sarcastic remarks, veiled threats, unfair comparisons, emotional blackmail and what not.

The GMIL is a creature unique to India, a country famous for its paradoxes. Not so surprisingly, GMILs wish to see their sons married, but to a girl she thinks worthy (meaning who can be controlled by herself), educated, working professional (but who works only at GMILs command), gels with the family   (caters to every whim and fancy of GMIL), is extremely fair, beautiful, petite and docile (basically straight from the Fair and Lovely commercial and a puppy without a tail) and is supremely dumb (dumb enough to not understand GMILs shenanigans).

In a society with rapidly changing demographics: more working women who are breaking the glass ceiling in all walks of life; the mother in law is black hole preventing the working married woman from equality in domestic life. Their resistance to adapting to the changing times is immense and their sense of righteousness is beyond compare. Metaphorically, their resistance to adapt and embrace the DIL as another human equal o their sons is as powerful as the great dinosaurs.

And the dinosaurs became extinct for they could not adapt themselves to changing temperature on the earth. Wake up call GMILs? Or soon you may be extinct too…

Woe-MAN!

I often think what it would be like if I were a man.  Apart from the fact that I could pee in public or take my shirt off when it pleased me, what else would be vastly different?  Oh and let’s not forget- no PMS! Hmm now we’re talkin..!

Come to think of it, there really are a lot of advantages men have in being…. ah… well…MEN. They don’t have to constantly invest in looking good so that a guy will come up and compliment them or feel awful when no one gives them a second look when they walk into a room. Whew! that sounds like a feminist talking. Let me assure you, I am not one of ‘em. 

I have always had a lot of friends from the opposite sex. Come to think of it…almost all of my friends are men. So that makes me some kind of an authority on them. NO. That’s how a man would have thought. Actually how men think can be a useful basis for analyzing them:

The “thinking”  man:

I start this taxonomy exercise with the most common of all – “the thinking man”. The thinking man is widely respected as a person who spends time on intellectual pursuits. The common symptoms are: he will be found hiding his face in a newspaper and still cannot tell what’s on page 2; he has read “War and Peace” and can quote verbatim from it; but may not be able to change a light-bulb in his own house.

The “I am busy” man:

This category belongs to those of my counterparts who are always busy. They work 12-14 hour days on weekdays, with a few hours thrown in during weekends for good measure. It may be observed that several software engineer friends of mine suffer from this syndrome. And yes, they do talk gibberish (which may or may not be Java code) in their sleep.

The “I, me, myself” man:

These are men who are besotted with themselves. Their love for themselves often borders on the point of being narcissistic. They seldom acknowledge the existence of two-legged creatures around them who possess matter (grey or white) between the ears but resent superior specimens of any species.

The “I am awesome” man:

“Awesome men” think it’s their duty to present their awesomeness to the world in the most obnoxious of ways. They strongly believe that everything about them including their house, dog, car, wife, neighbours and their aunts are awesome and the entire world must acknowledge them. They love sharing their opinion on anything under the sun with lesser, under-blessed, unfortunate mortals around them.

The “Screw everything! Let’s have beer” man:

A man in this category is often called a “man’s man”, or “alpha male”. He is the one who loves to argue about everything under the sun and then ends it with “Screw it! Let’s have a beer”. His peers envy him, some want to be like him. Symptoms usually are: large crowd surrounding a small table where our protagonist narrates one drunken adventure after another.

Mind you, it may be entirely possible that one may find all of the above traits in one man. Or, there may be traits which I have not written about in this blog. This is neither complete nor exhaustive;  but fear not my friends. That will be material for my next outing!!