Superiority

Yep Superiority

A documentary on the life of baboons actually got me thinking on this topic. A point they emphasized in this documentary kept hitting me hard whenever I encountered a similar instance in real life. To be honest I must say that there were umpteen number of such examples that we see in our everyday life. Not one for building in the suspense and never one for beating around for too long, I guess I must now get to the topic… Alpha Males! Yep I know I must be right now on the top of the list as a MCP.

(Sorry ladies but I just couldn’t get a reference for such a behavior that I can remember ever encountering on alpha females, but I must say that my day to day experience immediately contradict the above statement – Alpha Males…)

Well the society of baboons definitely had a rigid; very rigid set of rules to follow. Breaking one of them or rather the intrusion of another male into the group meant serious consequences and very often ended in a fight for supremacy.

One evening I stood on my balcony overlooking a couple of small kids playing in the gulley outside the apartment gate. What started as simply game of catch between two toddlers grew into a fully fledged game of cricket between six kids, a mixture of both boys and girls. Well I must say the boys were controlling most of it – no hard feelings but it sure looked like they were dominating. Pretty much the scenario when it comes to such sports. Pretty soon the game seemed to lack the initial vigor and faded off to a platter of several other insignificant games. The boys, hanging from wooden poles forming the fence and the girls spinning round and round like tops.

The brightly coloured skirts forming pretty circles with concrete grey in the background. This set off with the little boys each trying to outdo the others. Every boy present there was trying their best, trying to outdo the trick the other was doing. Eg; if one guy was hanging with his hands and legs from the pole the other was crawling from one end to the other of the same pole… Hmmm as is the case this did not catch the fancy of the little girls still spinning around. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The boys now start doing hurdles pretty often interrupting the activity of the girls.

Nothing can actually be done gracefully when you have a bunch of boisterous kids jumping around and taking their run ups… While all this is going on the boys not only have it amongst themselves to think of measures of actually getting the attraction of the girls but they also are trying to beat the other. Pretty soon the girls actually warm up to the antics of one spritely bloke and once that was set then he started dominating the events of the evening. Surprising considering all this happened in a span of just under an hour.

This too is one example of trying to be the dominant male, unconsciously enough the innocent boys were doing just that. If we actually look into it don’t you think every competition actually decides on this very topic. One competitor trying his level best to be declared the champion. Although the concept of the alpha male is pretty civil and does not have the severe consequences of the animal kingdom where its usually a battle to the death.