Ever wondered why so many brilliant people, celebrities, other famous people turn out to be, almost uncannily, from mixed parentages (let's call them hybrids for simplicity)? Now now.... I know many of you are saying, "hey, wait a minute".... but look around and you will see for yourself. When I first came across this some years back I felt the hybrids simply try harder to make it in life to get over their apparent "handicap". I call it handicap b'cos many countries / communities do discriminate or even ostracize children of mixed parentage. But look carefully and you will find that while that is true for any successful person, these hybrids certainly stand out in their abilities. The early example is the story of the "Brahma Bull" in the ranches of western US. Apparently, bulls from India were brought in in mid to late 19th centuries to cross-breed with cows in the US to have hybrid cattle that had better resistance to disease, heat and pests. Let us look at some exemplary people in our lives and also historically.... 1. Dr. Amarendra Bose of Bose sound systems. Born of a Bengali father and french mother.
2. Barack Obama - white American mother, African father
3. Steve Jobs - one of greatest innovative minds of our times - american mother, Syrian father (Abdulfattah Jandali)
4. Leonardo da Vinci - one of the most brilliant minds of the last millenium - illegitimate child born to a rich Italian father and a peasant slave girl allegedly of Middle Eastern origin.
5. Ronald Reagan - famous american president in the '80s - Scottish mother and Irish catholic father
6. Gen. Colin Powell - born to Jamaican Immigrant parents but also has a scottish-irish ancestry
7. Franklin Delano Roosevelt - one of most popular American Presidents - father of Dutch origin, mother of French origin.
8. Winston Churchill - English father and American mother
9. Adolf Hitler - Austrian but father was an illegitimate child of an allegedly Jewish German father and german mother. Some movie stars.....
10. Kareena Kapoor - Punjabi/Pathan father and Sindhi mother
11. Saif Ali Khan - Muslim/Pushtun origin father and Bengali Mother
12. Zeenat Aman - Maharashtrian brahmin mother and muslim father
13. Diya Mirza - bengali mother and German father
14. Celina Jiatley - Afghani mother and Punjabi father
15. Katrina Kaif - White American mother and Kashmiri father
16. Kajol - Marathi mom and Bong dad
17. Malaika and Amrita Rao - Punjabi dad and Mallu mom
18. Amitabh - punjabi mom and UP kayastha dad
19. Abhishek - Bong mom and Amitabh for dad
20. John Abraham - mallu dad and Parsi mom
21. Yuvaraj Singh - ace cricketer - Muslim mom, Hindu Jat father.
Coincidence or real? Genetic research and theory of natural selection says that while dominant and recessive features are governed by probability theory and recessive features never really die out completely, Dr. Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" argues that when a new gene is created from completely disparate gene pools, the best or strongest features are "selected" while the "weaker" ones are filtered out or die out by the genes. And there is no ethnicity or ancestry bias in this b'cos every race or ethnic group that is around today has survived evolution and hence will possess strong features in their genes that help it survive. Thus, gene pools from completely different streams (and in reality separated by several million or thousand years) would have accumulated certain strong survival features that are likely to be selected preferentially over weaker ones when crossing with another gene coming from another pool and vice versa. Conversely, several communities have in-breeding as a culture, apparently to keep the blood "true blue", and we do see several problems among the progeny in such communities - handicaps, their weaker resistance to diseases, etc. So next time you see a mulatto or a person of mixed parentage, don't reject them but look carefully - they could have some very special features, skills or could be specially abled 'cos it's all in the genes...... Sweety.....
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