A week back, I was going through an e-paper when a news item caught my attention. The news was about a special day that celebrates left-handed people. Adjusting myself on a chair, I read the article with much interest. It raised my eyebrows to know that World Left-Handed Day is celebrated across the world every year on 13th August.

In this predominantly right handed world, using the right hand has always remained mainstream. Since my childhood, I had witnessed and internalized the concept that we should use the right hand most of the time. Earlier, I never bothered whenever I saw people working with their left hand. But now after I got married, I automatically tend to be interested in it. The reason behind my growing interest in lefties is that my husband is also a left handed person.

Before my marriage most of the people in my circle were right handed, be it my family or my relatives or friends. So, I felt quite uneasy seeing my partner doing his works with his left hand. Most of the times, I used to say why don’t you pick up the spoon with your right hand. To this, he replied, ‘It happens so. As simple as that.’  I had always learned that our habits are based on heredity.

According to a research, just 10 per cent of the world’s population is left-handed. Historically, left-handed people were considered inferior as the other group outnumbered them. Left-hand shakes are a sign of disrespect. As left-handers use their left hand most of the time, when it comes to passing things to someone, they do it with their left hand which in our Asian society is considered disrespectful.

Having said that, these small group of people have their own special qualities which make them different from the rest. Results of a large survey published in the journal ‘Laterality’ found that left-handers had lower rates of arthritis and ulcers. They excel particularly in sports and art. The interesting fact is that most of the renowned people in the world were and are lefties.

After three years of togetherness, I am now finally conversant with this habit of his. And it irks me no more. After all, we all should be comfortable in our own skin.

Now, whenever I see my one year old baby using her left hand either to pick things or bid goodbye, I wonder if she will be a leftie or rightie. In both cases, it makes no difference to me after acknowledging the fact that being left handed is normal.