Is left, right?

For all you right handers out here... i would like to tell you that i exist. Yes, you probably know that already but this world is a frustrating place for left handers... I will cite out some instances right from my childhood that has had me fuming BCOZ THE WORLD IS RIGHT HANDER FRIENDLY and ignores the needs and aspirations of the left handed population. Why so much fumes? Read on..

Oh by the way... if u haven't guessed by now...... i'm left handed... :D

When i was a tiny little girl who was learning to write a,b,c,b (shit.. d.. i mean.. i still confuse the side on which the curve should come.. right handed chauvinism)... my aunt was trying to make me right handed.. she would sit with me and try to make me write A with my right hand but i always threw the pencil on her face (lovingly.. i was a kid no) and told her i couldn't write.. then one day, magically i wrote 'a, b and c' with my left hand.. and from then on i was christened a left hander... the 'one who wrote with the other hand'... my parents tried to make me write with my right hand.. but i couldn't even hold a pencil in my right whereas i was already writing poetry with my left

excerpts from my LKG poem

Ga ga gu gu gum..
I have a bottle of rum.
Now i drank it and want to piss,
Oops.. my parents just saw this..

So you see, not many people were appreciative of me being in the elite group of people who could write with their left hand. But it made me popular in school. Teachers and students used to pause and watch in awe, the way i turned my book upside down and wrote whatever i did. Now, the problem began when i started doing everything with my left hand...

I used to eat with my left hand too.. right up to my 4th std until my father one day taught me the realities of life.. actually.. taught me alternative uses of my left hand. Since then, i have accustomed myself to eating with my right hand..

So... there i lost the freedom of eating with my left hand but became ambidextrous. Only in eating. I still can't hold a pencil with my right hand!

In this world, everything is so right oriented. Right from the scissors to the vegetable skin peeler.. I CAN'T USE ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY ARE MADE FOR RIGHT HANDED PEOPLE!

Even during exams.. i was always the one with the right hander desk. I would then run behind the teacher, fight, lose time.. get a left hander desk only to discover that there's only ten minutes left before i had to submit my paper... sometimes, i would decide to bear the brunt.. i would twist and turn in the chair only to make the invigilator think i was copying (when i wasn't!) ... so i'd get thrown out of the room or land up with a bad back ache after three hours of sitting at very uncomfortable angles.

EVEN BENCHES WERE A PAIN. I remember how i was made to sit between 2 right handed boys during an exam. Apart from hitting my hand every other second, both of them had one main aim; to not let me write my exam. One guy would complain about the number of extra sheets i kept asking for and the other would ask to write with my pen.. and when i took another one to write.. he would ask for that.. and later admit that he wanted to write with the pen i wrote to see if he could write with this left hand! And if i turned the paper sideways by 90 degrees, both of them would shout in protest, thereby making me temporarily deaf! This was why i never did well in my exams! (I wish my dad would read this!)

Someone had told my uncle that left handers are dumb. So, he would spend hours teaching me random stuff... only to find me completely disinterested and half asleep. The same person had also told him left-handers were good at art. He didn't consider writing an art.. so he decided to teach me to draw.. thinking that i had some inborn talent that is sleeping.. the talent wasn't sleeping.. i was.. when he shoved a paper up my nose and demanded that i draw.. no matter how much he taught me i could still only manage a cat with an '8' figure and a very sad version of micky mouse.. that looked like something out of 'ET'.

At home.. everything was and is right hander friendly. I can never cut with the scissors (the blunt side faces the paper when i use my left hand) and never peel vegetables.. my dad thinks i use this as an excuse to refrain from doing work! He should try peeling vegetables holding the peeler upside down!

Also, when you write exams, people stare so much at your hands that the lecturer invariably thinks they are trying to copy out of your paper.. if only she knew what i was writing.. and how connected it was to the question..

Another thing about me being left handed is the painful jokes that my dad cracks at me.. he is someone who takes pleasure out of my pain.. so whenever he needs to cut something here's our conversation;

Dad: Can you cut this strip of paper

*I give him sarcastic look*

Dad: Well?

Me: Don't you know i can't cut with the scissors?

Dad: Try..

*Innocent me takes scissors and tries to cut.. it doesn't cut*

Dad: Hehehehe... left handers are supposed to use the 'right side of their brains'.. i guess that's difficult for you, considering you don't have any.. no wonder your not able to use the scissors and you claim to be 20!

*Me seeths*

Dad: Go peel that carrot

*Me turns red*

Dad: Oh, i forgot.. you can't do that either

*Dad continues laughing for the next ten minutes*

*Grandma walks in*

Grandma: Why are you laughing?

Dad: She calls herself an adult but can't cut a paper with a pair of scissors!

Grandma: Why?

Dad: Because she's a left hander! Hahahahaha

Grandma: Hahahaha *As though it is the funniest joke she has heard in ages*

Me: Even Obama is a left hander.. someday, i will become someone great like him.. then you won't laugh

Dad and Grandma : HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... This is the funniest joke i've heard in ages!

*Both laugh as i walk away, mental images involving hammers and nails*