THE STORY OF RAMAN...

Raman was born under the watchful eye of his grandmother. She was the first one to pick him up, after the nurse of course, and she was the one who gave him his name. His mom and dad were both educated and working, while his grandmother was of the generation that believes in training a girl for responsibilities of being a house-wife rather than wasting her time and resources in a school and treating a boy like he is God’s gift to mankind.

Raman’s father however was a very wise man and he considered his own upbringing to be extremely satisfactory and given the fact that he loved his mom and considered her an expert in rearing children (she had 5 kids!), young Raman was handed over to her from day one. Raman had very brief encounters with his own mother, mostly for breast-feeding and occasionally for being cajoled into sleeping or other pursuits when grandmother wanted to catch a break and/or the latest episode of her daily soap. So in all, Raman was brought up by his grandmother.

            It was the grandmother who discovered the problem first. As young Raman was being taught the skills to take his place in society, like how to eat, hold a pen and so on, and he learnt them endearingly but with one huge difference, he was left-handed.

It is one and the same problem!

Grandmother was in shock.  She was a pious lady, for the most part, and was horrified at this turn of events. That marked the beginning of the most tiring and gruesome phase in the life of an otherwise adorable child.
            Grandmother believed in the dictum, “spare the rod and spoil the child”; and she used the rod with gusto. Raman was being conditioned to not being left-handed and it was torture for the child. He could not help being left-handed, that was the way he was born and no amount of physical or emotional pressure could change the fact. So he devised a solution. He behaved normally for Grandma at home, but outside he tried to live as normally as a somewhat biased society would let him. Things went well, but for one minor issue, Raman was living a lie.

His parents saw the abuse, but were silenced into inaction by virtue of the respect they had for the old lady. However, they soon realized that being left-handed wasn’t a quirk that could be beaten out of a child; it was hard-wired into his system. So in the end, they put their foot down and the poor child was allowed to be who he was.

                Dear friend. Now that I have told you about Raman, please take a few moments from your busy lives and ponder the answer to the questions below:

Q1. Was Grandma right in abusing and not accepting the unique nature of the boy?

Q2. Was it right to penalize a human being for something that he had no hand in controlling?

Q3. Are you appalled by the inhuman and medieval treatment of an innocent child, right into his adulthood?

Unfortunately, this abuse still continues even in the most modern cities of India and many parts of the world.

Do you disagree?

Replace the phrase “left-handed” with “gay” in the above story and then see if it isn’t true!