Mothers-in-law, Dinosaurs And Actor Ajith - Varalotti In The US 5

Before I left India I heard a few ILites complaining that many daughters-in-law have started using the IL forum to complain about their mils.


And surprisingly a few young ILites (who were dils themselves) voiced this opinion and from the tenor of their voice, I could say that they were not happy with the trend. Well, ladies, I have written enough about mils and dils.


I am not exactly in a mood to initiate another charade against women belonging either of these classes. Let us keep this in a corner of our mind and then go visit the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.

That is a huge, no, a humongous exhibition of various science exhibits. There is an impressive section dedicated to the Dinosaurs. I also had the pleasure of seeing a 3D movie on Dinosaurs in an IMAX theatre inside the Centre. Quite scary.

And we all know that, thankfully, Dinosaurs are extinct today. Otherwise the survival of our specie would have been a big question mark.

Now there are various theories on why and how the huge reptiles suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. May be they were swept away by some cyclonic storms.


Or the earth was hit by a meteor several million years ago which killed all the dinosaurs. Or they could not find food and died of starvation. Or some smart creatures, which have also become extinct now, devoured them all.

Dinosaurs were pretty huge. They were well equipped. Some of them could fly. One variety coule spit poison on the face of its attacker. And given their size they could kill a dozen able-bodied men with just a swish of their tails. But even then they became extinct letting us, human beings, rule the earth.

Paleontologists are busy advancing theories about the extinction of these species. Spielberg added a few more millions to his coffers by taking a series of films on these large reptiles.


And we, management consultants, often use this as a case study in training groups.

Why did the dinosaurs disappear? Well, the popular answer in the training sessions I handled so far is that the size of their brains did not match their body size or their powers.


With so much of raw power, if the Dinosaurs had been gifted with a slightly more powerful brain, they could have survived. Poor souls!


They were simply not brainy enough. Then we use the analogy to say how some large corporations which do not have intelligent CEOs or Board of Directors soon go out of business or are gobbled by other corporations. Trainees love this metaphor.

People who are hopelessly out of date call themselves dinosaurs. Shoba De, the most popular and prolific woman-writer I know, calls herself a dinosaur, because she still writes in long hand . (But that does not in any way reduce the “fire” in her writing is a different issue).

So when I visited the Science Center and was seeing the fossils of these huge reptiles, I had a kind of healthy condescension for them - the same way your doctor looks at you when you are terribly sick and he is in the pink of his health.


Poor creatures, I pitied them. Had I seen a live dinosaur I would have, out of compassion, thrown away my half-eaten popcorn bag for it to eat. Being a member of the specie of human beings, my ego had swollen to great heights, (even taller than some of the larger dinosaurs).


And then God in Her infinite wisdom thought that it was high time that Varalotti learns his next lesson.

There was an interactive exhibit. Are we human beings more successful than the dinosaurs? It asked me providing YES and NO buttons for answers. Munching popcorns I hit the YES button with an arrogant smile. Then it asked me to flip over the board for the answer.


What was written there humbled me, insulted me, disillusioned me, brought me back to my senses and made me wiser.

Here’s the exact script.

It is easy to think that dinosaurs were failures - we are here and they are gone. In fact a glance at the timeline on the dinosaur identification signs will remind you that while humans and our human ancestors have been on the earth for a few million years,the dinosaurs were the earth’s major land animals for over 130 million years. You can’t argue with that kind of success. So far in terms of longevity they have us beat at least 25 times over.

I took a vow that moment not to talk of dinosaurs in my training sessions in the same disparaging note I have been doing for years.

What does this lesson has to do with a mother-in-law or Ajith?

Some daughters-in-law (definitely not any one of our 10000 plus ILites) naively think that they have come to replace their mil. That their mil’s time is over and their time has started.

In a sense that is true. But the mother-in-law, like the dinosaur, has survived long.

She has lived probably thirty or more years, more than her dil. She has raised a family. Especially she has raised her son so wonderfully well that the dil simply had fallen in love with him.

Well, she may not live for another 40 years, but she has lived long. And at the beginning of her dils married life she has already outlived her several times over.

I don’t mean that this would entitle the mil to ill-treat or alienate her dil. But if a dil bears this in mind, her relationship with her mil is bound to be healthy.

But in the same breath I have to warn you dils, that there are some mils, with whom, it is almost impossible to establish a relationship. As there are bad mils, so there are bad dils. That’s the way of life. Lesson learnt? I am happy.

Now why should we drag the poor Ajith in the picture?

When Ajith’s movies were box-office hits in the 90s (movies like Vaali, Anandha Poonkaatre etc) my friend, an Ajith-fanatic declared ‘Here’s a fresh face. A good actor. Handsome. So Kamal’s days are numbered.’ It never happens like that. Kamal is a dinosaur but is still surviving.

When a specie has survived for long, then it develops several survival techniques and features which makes it live even longer. Now the latest news is that Ajith is struggling much harder to survive in the film industry than Kamal or Rajni, the old dinosaurs.

Shivaji Ganesan and MGR were the older dinosaurs that are extinct now. But they too had survived for long and had far more glorious years than either Kamal or Rajni.

Time marches on. It does not have a moment to care which species survives and which does not. But in its relentless march it gives us several lessons to learn.

One unfailing survival mechanism is to learn these lessons. Lest, we would become extinct and become a lesson for others to learn.

Here's the picture of the message that shook me to my roots.

Dear Varalotti sir,
Very thought provoking post and it is funny too!
Gets you to think in the 'Grand scheme of Things' mode.

and man, you make interesting comparisons! I would have thought you were going to say mil's are wretched wild creatures like the poison spitter :) just kidding :)
Regards,
Mythili

Dear Mythili,

Now only I am heaving a huge sigh of relief. I thought if I support any of the in-laws' side, I would be declared an outlaw by the ILites. And here comes one ILite and says it is good and interesting. Thank you, mythili.

By the way to which class do you belong? The dinosaurs or the human beings, I mean, the mil or the dil?

Believe me my friend, this is not a trick to make you tell your age. ha ha.
love,

I am one of the lucky ones with a wonderful mil. perhaps I am more close to her than her daughter :)

hey I can't beleive you thought I am a 70 year old man!

I had a post that I am pregnant, now did you think I was making up that and did not wish me on that one?? :mad:

That's a great blessing, Mythili. You should thank God for that.

Let me be very clear, Mythili. I never thought you were a 70 year old man. I only wrote to you that it doesn't matter to me even if you were one.

I am sorry I missed out on that pregnancy post. IL has become large today that for me it takes enormous time to just man my forums. In fact two years ago, when a lady was reading my thriller serial, I wrote a pm to her saying, "I know you are pregnant. So till you deliver please do not read my serial. It could be scary."
But now I keep on missing posts. Either I am ageing or IL is growing large. ha ha.

Kidding apart, let me wish you a trouble-free, pain-less delivery and pray to God that you should be blessed with a healthy, happy baby that would make its parents really proud.

regards,

Dear Sridhar Sir,

another interesting post from you,
when i first read the title of the thread i was bit excited to know how did you relate the three. i liked them and enjoyed reading.
Hatts of to u . hope to see many more from your Trip.

Enjoyee your stay.....



PS: just now saw the Pictures of your meet which vandhana sent me, you are Rocking as usal with the pretty ladies along side.

Dear varalotti sir,
Thank you. I pray that your words come true!
Love,
Mythili

Ok Sridhar,
You had me there for a while. I seriously thought you were going to review some movie with Ajith that had the above mentioned characters in them .
But wow, a real thought provoking post from you. As a race, i find dinosaurs to be magnificent animals. I do think they will still be the only race to have lived for so long on this earth. Given , human's tendency to fight , be egoistic etc etc... we are writing our own doom in the near future. I think we will probably wipe each other out and Mother earth too , long before we set a record for having inhabited the earth for so long.

All said and done, my MIL belongs to the dinosaur class. A very wonderful person and really i have found in her rare qualities that gave her the strength to go against the social norms of those days and come out winning.

As for the present generation of actors, please , i think they are all butterflies with short lived "reel life". No one can beat the yesteryear actor lot in any of the categories be it drama or comedy. And this holds true for Hindi, english actors too i feel. probably all the technological advances in movie making are proving to be an obstacle in bringing to light an actors natural talent at histrionics.

All in all a great write up. So where are we going next ? Can't wait till saturday.

Vandhana