Children and stubbornness

It was a sleepy Sunday afternoon, was channel hopping and found the Maniratnam's Tamil movie, Kannathil Muthamittal (A Peck on the cheek). This is another of Maniratnam's touching movies which talks about a child who is brought up in a very loving family and finds out on her 9th birthday that she is adopted. The movie is about the search of the girl for her mother who is involved in the Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka.


Though the movie was on the very good movies I have seen, one thing which I found striking in the movie is the girl's characterization. The girl, on finding that she is adopted, is hell bent upon finding her real mother. The girl is so passionate, or do I say obstinate, about this quest, that she and her family braves the conflict in Sri Lanka and tries to find her mother among mortars shelling and gun fights.

I was surprised; can children be so stubborn, almost on the verge of dogmatism. It sounds strange that her parents would go to such lengths, as to go to a warzone to yield to the whims of 9 year old girl.

But then we never know, how stubborn can children be. I have seen some very extreme cases too. There are also stories about Birbal, Akbar and a child who was obstinate and how none other than Birbal could convince using all his wits.

How stubborn can children be?

Scientific Adam

Menfolk of the world unite... we are all brethren, this is not a figure of speech but truly we are all scientifically brothers, cousins and the like. When I say, "menfolk of the world", I literally mean it. Sounds strange? So did It for me too.

Spencer Wells, a genecist, is carrying out a research on finding the Scientific Adam. His research is to find how the present day man has evolved all over the world and can we trace the genetic history of every man today. I thought that the idea on the whole itself was far fetched. But then every scientist has a theory. Wells' theory is based on the fact the Y chromosome in humans' which basically distinguishes a man from the woman genetically, gets passed on from father to son, then to his son so on and so forth. So any mutation or genetic changes in the Y chromosome of the father gets carried on to the son too. Hence, the presence of the similar mutation in the son can prove that he is related to the father.

Using this theory he has examined the genes of men from all parts of the world and conclusions are startling. Apparently, there are certain genetic changes which can be found in all of the men indicating that all of the men did emerge out of a family tree whose pioneer was the "Scientific Adam". That is quite a discovery or let us say at least a claim which is startling. Wells, also claims that this person would have hailed from East Africa around 2000 generations ago, definitely not like Michelangelo's Adam :-)

Theory goes on to say that mankind had come to a virtual extinction around 40000 years ago reducing to a handful of people of which one was our "Scientific Adam". This man being a true leader and better of the lot managed to raise sons and grandsons, who then travelled all over the world and so giving rise to the billions of humans we are there today.

I have tried to find my family tree for the past few generations which in itself is not complete, imagine going back to Adam. How many generations of your ancestors can you trace?

Economic Growth in India

Last week the CSO announced that the economic growth in India has touched 9.5%. That is very good news.. We are one in the top few countries which are achieving this kind of growth rate. This means we have more money to spend and our standard of living is improving leaps and bounds.

I guess it is true to some extent based on the amount of vehicles being added to the road, the number of apartment complexes coming up, the mall culture hotting up, consumer durable sales on the rise etc. Every one seems to want to have a refrigerator, television so on and so forth.

But on closer examination, is it really true. There are so many people whom I see still find it difficult to make their ends meet even the basic food and shelter. I can see so many of them in the cities themselves, god help the rural areas. Is this whole economic growth a farce, are they just numbers and statistics, being skewed by the growth of a small population and retrograde growth of a whole bunch of others. May be.. I am not sure. I am not an economist to be able to get to the details of these, but something does not seem right.

Today I saw an article on news media; "50% of the worlds riches is owned by 2% of the population" and "85% of the worlds riches is owned by 10% of the population". These numbers are really shocking. This shows the disparity among us. Should there be a better way of the wealth being spread among the population? I know I know where this is leading too.. but I am not talking about communism, but then this too is not good.