Same Mother Same Father

I had a chance to visit a Southern African country some years ago. Friendly as they are, the African people very quickly made me feel at home during my short stay. They were always very curious about our great ancient Indian civilization, Indian values, morals and traditions. We always had very pleasant exchanges of information barring a few minor things. I noticed that there was hardly any difference in values and morals. The only thing which I predominantly found to be not matching our Indian thinking was that they hardly had any inhibitions and social rules regarding sexual relations.  While introducing me to other family members they would casually state “this is my young brother Same Mother Same Father” or “this is my sister but My Mother and different Father”.

After staying with my African friends for few months I got very close to them.  I started making fun of them around the statement ‘Same Mother Same Father’. This went on for some days till one of them casually asked me if we Indians consider heroes from Mahabharata as ‘Gods’. I answered “they are not actually considered as Gods but we respect them a lot”. To my surprise the gentleman said, “Baanaa, even those whom you respect so much also did not have Same Mother Same Father, I have read the Mahabharata when I was studying in Indonesia”

I mean to show no disrespect for any person or do not mean to hurt any sentiments, but we must realize there is hardly any relation between a person's family tree and heights one can scale in life.