Its time we replaced the phrase "
Show me your friends and I will tell about you" with "
Show me your genes and I will decode you!" because its increasingly becoming evident that what we are is all about our genes. This might irritate the highly successful people because it takes away all credits they bore for their success. But its mighty reassuring for guys like me who kept blaming ourselves for not achieving as much as the frontbenchers did. Genetic engineering has turned out be a more fascinating field than I had imagined. In my younger days I used to go around town saying I wanted to become a genetic engineer. I am not very sure why I did it, but I think it could be because it sounded very sophisticated and would create a good impression about myself or it sounded complicated and people wouldn't probe me any further. But I clearly remember why I let go off this idea - My consistently poor performance in biology which in-turn was due to my unique ability to draw a circle which resembled an amoeba (well you could argue thats biology too!). Anyways without digressing much into topics which will be dealt in detail in my biography (I am too humble and lazy to write an autobiography), I want to say I am super excited about the prospects of human genome project. The avenues that open up with the ability to tweak our genetic code are mind-blowing and will surely be the next giant step in the development of mankind. And my crazy mind has come up with the following wish list for genetic tweaking -
- The BCCI instead of requesting (read as 'secretly pleading') the services of a stripper like Poonam Pandey to motivate the Indian team should have recruited some genetic engineers to help them decode the gene responsible for fear of OFOs (Overhead Flying Objects) also called as 'Rainaphobia'. This condition displayed by many Indian batsmen involves morbid fear of any spherical object traveling at 150km/h above shoulder level. And this fear is the main reason why a lot of Indian batsmen fall sick in overseas tour.
- Another gene therapy that will benefit our cricket team is the cause for PSRS (Progressive Speed Reduction Syndrome) which is a rare condition endemic to Asian males especially Indians who are professional fast bowlers. The main symptom is the gradual reduction of bowling speed with time to such an extent that they transform from strike bowlers to
striken bowlers.
- A major flaw in the evolution of womankind is their mutual exclusivity of beauty and brains (of course not the girl to whom I am getting married to!). They have tried a lot over the ages (smart women invented the cosmetics industry and beautiful women slept with smart men) to overcome this 'birth defect' but have only managed to widen the gap further. So I guess it is something very fundamental to women and hence some tweaking of their genetic makeup will help these poor souls a lot.
- Unlike women men had no evolutionary flaws (hmm.... ok except for this arrogance). But then some men started experimenting with their body and developed some sort of wrinkles on their stomach (read as 'six packs'). Now those of us who don't have six packs are considered to suffer from some sort of deformity. Every gym I visited and every instructor over there told me that to a large extent it depends on "You regularly hitting the gym" and to a lesser extent "It depends on your genes". Since both these causes attack my core values, I very badly want to undergo gene therapy to absolve myself of this lifelong burden.
- When I am in a state of rest (physically or mentally), I become this immovable object which won't move even if acted upon by any amount of external force like verbal or physical abuse (Newton would be really disappointed to hear this). At the end of the day my arse moves just because the earth rotates. There is a general consensus that this state of inertia is what is stopping me from achieving greater success and becoming a prominent figure of the 21st century. Since I don't see this condition among any of my fellow human beings, I am sure it has to be rare congenital defect.
- When will an Indian ever win an Olympic gold medal? Will Sania Mirza, the greatest sportswoman India never produced, ever cross the first round of a grand slam? Can India ever win a football world cup (to be little more accurate, when will it qualify for the world cup)? These questions have dominated our coffee table discussions for a very long time now. To find the answer to these questions we have to travel back several centuries when our forefathers where making pioneering efforts in maths, science and even the art of love making! At the same time the Europeans were raising armies and busy waging wars against each other. The moral of the story is, genetically we are not suited for exerting ourselves physically. So lets stop burdening our sportsmen with such unrealistic expectations and allow them to concentrate more on their social life. But if you ask me why then aren't we in the forefront of science and technology, I would simply say it is out of the scope of this discussion.
