There is many an “anomaly” which keeps a person in the limelight, as famous or infamous.
One particular that is much antagonised by society is the left-handedness of a person. Right from the time he or she begins to use it for “important right-handed activities”—especially writing, accepting the holy prasadam or giving and accepting anything—one is derided and cajoled to switch over to the right hand and should the child show reluctance, a smack on the left hand is used to scare the child. This in turn makes him or her stubborn, one who is mostly misunderstood by the parents.
I should know, having a left-handed brother, left-handed brother-in-law and sister-in-law and a son who is left-handed!
Right from the day I found out he was left-handed, like others of my ilk I did everything to make him use the right hand to perform the “right” actions in the “right” way and at the “right” time. Stressing the use of the right hand as is wont for eating and writing—supposed to be sacred actions—making up for a good life now and in the future! At one point I felt this continuous pressure on using his right hand had made his handwriting a little bad and I hold myself totally responsible for it.
This particular debility was eventually forgivable, as he turned out a consultant orthopaedician (given the known fact that doctors’ prescriptions are usually illegible).
We, as parents, are so socially conscious that anything that goes against norms makes us jittery and we pass it onto our children little realising that we are depriving them of being normal beings in their own way!
It is argued that children are born ambidextrous and as they grow up they tend to use their right or left hand.
But parental pressure frightens them with no recourse to their own will and power. Many a time as a kid when he was at the dinner table, my son would argue that he was using the “right” hand just like us. No amount of our trying to correct him served the purpose.
The saddest fact is that tools or instruments in every field of industry or medicine are meant for right-handed people. One can imagine the difficulty of the left-handed people in using the instruments. The adjustment that they have to make to make good in their particular field must be tear-inducing. I am sure science by now has made adequate arrangements for the left-handed to succeed in their particular field by providing them the right tools.
But things move on as left-handers are born and harassed to change their hand, to suffer the ignominy of being way out of the rest of the community of the right, struggle and make their way through life, going all out to prove that they will do it. As they accomplish their goals, like my some of my near and dear ones, they come up the right…er, left, way!