Lineage.....

A great lineage could mean so many things....to some it means a family history of Harvard or MIT degrees...or IIM and ISC graduates....to some it may mean a family history of great film stars......to many more it may mean.....a family background of politicians, civil servants, engineers or doctors.
To me a great lineage is, a family history of shared roof, a family history of loyalty, love, fearlessness, self empowerment, girl power and selfless work.

My mother often asks me to think about giving the civil service exams when I get back home, and more often than not the idea is ridiculed by my father, saying that....in the civil services lineage is very important...you have to have a background in it...a family history of civil servants.... for you to survive, else like so many others you are just a pawn, not to say that if you have a family background of civil servants then you are not a pawn, but then that is a whole different line of discussion in itself, let's keep that for some time later.
My concern here is less contextual, the question i ask myself is what is lineage?
My paternal aunt, while still a young girl, single handedly took it upon herself to bring up three brothers and two sisters, sacrificing her personal life....and becoming an income tax officer at the tender age of 21.......my maternal grandfather rose from a red cross volunteer to being the Secratary general of Red Cross simulatneously bringing up younger siblings his own five children and supporting his older siblings....
It is simple chemistry, like the change in oxidation state. To me, My aunt and grandfather add more value to the word lineage than a family history of IITians .
Ofcourse it is a great honour and responsibilty (if not burden too ) to carry the family name forward for all those who are children of privilige and lineage, in the generally percieved sense of the word, and I agree that they deserve a pat in the back for being what they are BUT to me when I see a a guy , my own classmate of four years..... from a small village in Bihar(, India), mortgage his father's only piece of land and earn an engineering degree, learn to speak english in an environment with reeks with mockery at the non english speakers, survive financial difficulties and personal struggles and get a dream job, that to me, is, lineage in the making.