Being a Leftie

BEING A LEFTIE: A BOON OR CURSE?

I am a leftie. No, this is not my political stance, it's who I am - a left-handed guy. Statistically, only 7% of the global human population use their left hand as the primary the right hand as their secondary. Most people, be it my friends or relatives, don't notice my hand preference until they are having lunch or participating in any sports related activity with me. They react with a quite surprise and so do others.

Hereditarily, I don’t know where the leftie gene comes from. My parents and grandparents on both sides are right-handed and so were my great grandparents, for that matter.

The Indian society, in general, has oppressed left-handers and forced them to switch their dominant hand from the left to right. Religiously too, using left hand for Pooja or distributing or receiving prasad has often been looked down upon. I can recall an instance from my childhood. My mother and I went to a temple and stayed for the Aarati. Of course, as any other kid, I was looking forward to the prasad. Instinctively, my left hand went ahead to receive it. The pujari distributing the prasad, shouted & scolded rather loudly at me like I had committed a very grave sin for using my left hand. I felt embarrassed and humiliated while the aunties around me murmured and agreed. I felt ashamed while really there is nothing to feel ashamed about. The logic behind the prevalence of the right hand is pretty simple. Normally, we as humans are predominantly right-handed. Therefore, a person would use his left hand for more... ahem… personal functions. To put it more bluntly, in the washroom. But that logic turns upside down in case of people like me. So, isn’t it more logical and basically more hygienic to use the left hand for religious activities? But of course, the non-elastic customs always put a blindfold over using common sense.

Indian society has always forced us – the lefties - to go against our natural flow and adapt. To be fair, it's not only our society but also the entire world. The world simply isn’t designed for us. It simply isn’t! Whether it be scissors, pencils, spiral notebooks, we struggle using all these tools because they are designed for right-handers only. For instance, consider the writing pad chairs. How are left-handers supposed to write sitting in those chairs? I had to write my entire mid-semester examination with those chairs because the classroom was particularly assigned to our division. Even in the case of normal benches or tables, I have to sit on the left side/corner otherwise my hand inevitably clashes with the right-handed person sitting next to me. It is very frustrating to live in surroundings which never consider the lefties.

Fortunately, my mother never insisted/forced me to change my hand preference. But many a times, she failed to see that even in restaurants, the waiters would always arrange the dishes to my right side. Therefore, I used to move my hand across left to right making a mess of food in the process. This would always agitate her. It was later that she joined a community of left-handers and got to know that it was the terrible placement of things in my surroundings which was the root of my problems. Now, after learning this my parents go to great measures to make sure that I can use my left hand comfortably. I am really grateful for this. The study table which I am currently using to write this blog is a proof enough. We had it custom made so that the drawers and cupboard would be on the left side.

But we still have to adapt as unfortunate as it is. Therefore unknowingly, all left-handers have to become ambidextrous (ability to use both right and left hands well) to some extent. No, we all certainly can’t write with our right hand but since the world is tailored for the right, we have to use the right one. Take the accelerator on a bike, the steering wheel in a car, a keyboard or a mouse, a smartphone, take something as basic as handshakes. My right hand reflexively comes forward whether it's for networking or even when dapping with friends. All my life I have been teased about having poor hand motor skills when people don’t realize how hard it is using something as simple as a scissor against your hand preference. I wonder how celebrities/famous figures like Amitabh Bacchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Ratan Tata, Tom Cruise, Barack Obama, Mary Kom, Yuvraj Singh, Rajnikant or even Prime Minister Narendra Modi feel about being a leftie (again not their political stance). Our PM is known to write with his right hand but uses his left hand for primary activities such as eating. Sachin Tendulkar played with his right hand the entire career but writes with his left. This is what I meant when I said that left-handers have to be ambidextrous to some extent.

The awareness about left-handers and the stigma associated with it is now being brought to light and being discussed by figures such as Kapil Sharma who is also a leftie. In the generations before us, often parents have forced their children to stop using their left hand and switch to the right. This still persists to some extent in the current generation. Just a speculation, but could that be the reason Modiji uses his right, only to eat? My Great-grandmother also once told me that society will shun me if I eat with my left hand. But I think society shuns regardless. In my childhood, I often blamed myself when actually, the surroundings were not in my favour. I did adapt and evolve as did all other left-handers and eventually, stopped blaming myself after I found myself relating to other lefties to our common problems.

So finally, to answer the typical essay question: Boon or Curse? Well, my fellow Southpaws, it's a Boon! Do NOT let anyone convince you otherwise!