If you are a left hander then read on, and if you are not then there is even more reason to read on

I was in grade five and for the first time appeared for handwriting contest held for the entire class. No shame to acknowledge that not only I performed miserably but was also chided for having a horrible handwriting. Oh yeah, every move for the next letter had smudged the ink making the handwriting contest more like a contest for abstract art. 

All this happened because I wrote the test with my left hand, being born a left-hander.

Even years before this particular incident, I had known the pain and struggle of trying to survive in the right-hander's world. 

As a lefty who has been forced to use right-handed desks it can only be imagined the extra effort and strength we lefties have to put in as we jot down notes while trying to maintain the balance to stay seated and decently on the desk.  

We manage to adjust to the right-handed desk but there is another ordeal waiting for us. As soon as we start using the ink pens we realize that our left hand has an uncanny knack of attracting the colourful liquid, smudge as it is known. It further spoils the note books giving a beating to our grades. Maybe it was a disgruntled lefty who invented gel pen?     

Somehow I spent a good number of sessions at the combat ranch and scored really well as I practiced several fire arms, small to the big ones, and all of them are still designed for the right-handers as far as I am aware of. And fewer people who are left-handed make it to the armed forces or other armed forces for the same reason. 

Then back at home, it is the pair of scissors and peelers that are not friendly to left-handed people. Again, they are designed for the benefit of the righties. 

I simply love music and always wanted to, still want to be a guitarist like my heroes Steve Stevens, Jimmy Page, and David Gilmour. I did not and do not have the patience to do a Jimi Hendrix or Sir Paul McCartney. But I had to settle being the lead vocalist. You know why? Because most musical instruments, guitar too, are designed for right-handers.

About Left Handedness

Hardly 10 per cent, rather less than 10 per cent of the world’s population is left-handed. Several extensive studies by neuroscientists believe that left-handed people have a wider scope of thinking and points to the disproportionately high number of Nobel Prize winners, writers, and painters who are left-handed.

Snippet: Geneticist Daniel Geschwind, in 2009, summarized the state of research into American Presidential handedness as follows: From a statistical standpoint, it looks like something's going on, but what it is, we don't know.

Famous Left-handers

Robert De Niro

Angelina Jolie

Prince William

Barack Obama

Keanu Reeves

Julia Roberts

Bill Clinton

Lady Gaga

Bruce Willis

Tom Cruise

Justin Bieber

Oprah Winfrey

Paul McCartney

Jay Leno

Demi Moore

Prince Charles

Celine Dion

Bill Gates

Whoopi Goldberg

Eminem

Jim Carrey

Ratan Tata

Sachin Tendulkar

Saurav Ganguly

Yuvraj Singh

Irfan Pathan

Zaheer Khan

Amitabh Bachchan 

Sunny Leone

Waseem Akram