Shut up amid the cackle.

Submergee to Emergee

For those who came in late, a submergee is a person who has been converted into a right hander from a left hander. An emergee is a person who re-converts and goes back to his innate handedness.
I was born a left hander. To this day, I stay a left hander. I draw, cut, open doors, and shampoo with my left hand. The only things that I do with my right hand, or rather the only things that were forced upon me as a left hander, were writing and eating. I was rapped on the knuckles by obliging nuns in nursery school for attempting to write with my left hand. At home, I would be given a spoon if I tried to eat with my left hand. Eventually, I started writing with my right hand. But still, nature had its way. I simply cannot open bottles, use keys, or comb hair with my right hand.
When I was about 8, I developed a kind of writing disability with my right hand, which, the neurologist said, was a result of converting my handedness. I turned to my beloved left hand, which served me during my time of need. But, I let it go as soon as my right hand returned to proficiency.
In my first escapades with cooking, I wondered why I always used the knife upside down. I was even laughed at by many people for not knowing how to hold a kitchen knife. What nobody understood was that my poor brain was confused trying to decode instructions, and could not choose between the imposed and the natural very quickly. I consciously coach myself to use the correct side of the knife now.
I have always understood letters and instructions in mirror images. By no means am I dyslexic, but somehow, I had a tendency to write mirror image letters when I was a kid. I can still do that, and I enjoy it, because not many people can boast of it. Till date, for me left is right and right is left. My first instinct is always to lift the left leg. I am a left sider as well, I figure. I want to be able to write with both hands, the way I can do most things with both.
What disturbs me about this is how far can our obsession with conformism go? Why should left handers be forced to become right handers? Till date, auto drivers ask me to use my right hand to pay them rather than the left. The last time one of them said that, I asked him to cut off his left hand and live without it, if it’s that useless and unclean.

posted by Anupama. @ 5:12 pm