The Hindu Business Line : Sensitising society about left-handers

The trauma is stepped up as the little one enters nursery or play group where the teacher now takes on the onus of converting the left-hander into a right hander and is taken further by the circle of family, friends and society at large who believe that left is not right.

Pune , Oct. 13

AMITABH Bachchan, Saurav Ganguly and Abhishek Bachchan might probably not have turned out to be the unique people we know them as today, had they been part of the `right-handed' world that we live in.

And what gave them the extra edge in life is probably the fact that these people enjoyed the support of a loving network of family and friends who did not, in anyway, make them feel lesser human beings due to their left-handedness, says Mr Bipinchandra Chaugule, President of the Association of Left-Handers.

But for the thousands and lakhs of children born left-handed, life might not be that easy.

Instead, many of them end up undergoing a nightmare, which starts at the age of two or three when parents/grandparents begin by trying to teach them to use their right hand for a variety of activities.

In what is being seen as a unique effort to get a largely right-handed world to take a different look at the hand preferences, Mr Chaugule and his team are now conducting a series of orientation programmes at schools in Pune with the mission statement of sensitising the teaching community to the issue.

And assisting them in their job is Belgian researcher Ms Isabelle Van Damme, who is currently in the city as part of her study for her thesis on `Handedness and Hand Preference'.

A left-hander herself, Ms Van Damme, a student of psychology, has been studying the effects of being forced to be right-handed on the human mind and body and has developed a series of tests that will establish hand-preferences amongst children so that parents and teachers are aware and sensitive to the fact before any damage to life. The programme itself is not about left-handedness but about hand preferences, which can include the entire gamut from mixed-handedness and ambidextrousness to confused or uncertain hand preference.

"Correct use of hands is vital to well-being and overall functional efficiency of the human being but the tragedy here is that the base of acquiring this skill is the early ages of two to seven which is also when the child is at the mercy of parents and adults and unable to express or assert himself," says Mr Chaugule.

He points out that being forced into right-handedness has been proven to be detrimental to a section of left-handers who end up losing self-confidence, self-esteem and other desirable personality traits.

Almost a fortnight into the experiment now, Mr Chaugule says the response from the target audience has been enthusiastic and encouraging with some of the schools inviting Ms Isabelle and team to present their case to the parent community and to the students themselves, by talking to them separately.

Meanwhile, Mr Chaugule's association of left-handers, with official membership strength of 400, is doing its bit for this section of society by spreading the word around by monthly meetings and talks at nursery and playgroup level.

And while the Pune-branch has a large number of non-member fraternity (those who don't pay the Rs 200 annual fee), Mr Chaugule is not unduly perturbed about this.

"The more the merrier is what I believe since one more person who is convinced of this issue will carry the message to at least two others and that is what we need."

The association has fully active and functioning branches at Kutch, Bhuj, Mumbai and in Solapur and Mr Chaugule is hopeful that the world will one day wake up to the fact that left is alright too!

After all, he signs off, left-handers are the world's largest unorganised minority community.

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Sensitising society about left-handers

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