“Neelu! Wash your face and hands and have your meal,” Neelu’s mother called.

Neelu was very hungry. Moreover, after a long time, her grandma, who had come to stay with them these days, prepared the food. So, she rushed to the dining table.

On the dining table, a thali was laid with her favourite bhindi sabzi, fresh mango pickle and aamras. Her mouth watered.

She quickly picked up the spoon. She had hardly eaten a spoonful of aamras when her grandma came. Before Neelu could tell her grandma that the aamras was very tasty, her grandma interrupted her.

“Again, you’re holding the spoon in your left hand? I have told you so many times to eat with your right hand. Eating with the left hand does not look good.”

Neelu felt disappointed. She lost all her enthusiasm for the food.

Quietly, she tried to eat with her right hand, which she found very difficult. The aamras kept spilling out of the spoon. She was unable to eat the sabzi with roti.

She felt helpless, and her eyes were filled with tears. She somehow finished her meal and got up.

Neelu used to do all her chores with her left hand, because of which her elders and neighbours gave her strange looks and often pointed it out to her. They made her realise that using her left hand was not correct.

When Neelu saw her friends writing with their right hands, she wished she could do the same too. But despite her countless efforts, she could not hold the pencil properly in her right hand.

Her handwriting with her left hand was beautiful, whereas the writing done with her right hand looked like a nursery kid’s writing.

Her friends often asked her, “Neelu, how do you manage to write with the opposite hand? We can’t do that.”

Some said, “You look so strange while writing with the left hand.”

Many teased her calling her ‘Lefty’.

That’s why Neelu squirmed sometimes and was reluctant to write anything in front of anyone.

One day Neelu’s mother said to her father, “We shall raise our Neelu to be a doctor.”

Hearing this, Neelu said, “No, I don’t want to be a doctor. A doctor has to sit in front of everyone and write prescriptions. How bad I would look while writing with my left hand!”

As she was comfortable using her left hand for all the tasks she did, she faced difficulties learning several of them, especially those tasks that required using scissors for sewing and knitting.

Most tools are made to be used by right-handed people since there are more of them in the world.

Due to this, Neelu could not accomplish any task properly. She felt very frustrated about it.

As a result, she gradually started losing her self-confidence and remained worried.

Once, when Neelu’s father had just come from the office, he called, “Neelu! Let’s play badminton. I have bought a new shuttlecock.”

“No, I don’t want to play badminton,” Neelu replied sadly.

“Why don’t you want to play? You are so fond of playing badminton, aren’t you?” asked her father.

“Yes, Papa, I am indeed fond of it, but grandma will scold me if I play with my left hand,” Neelu replied.

“What is there to be scolded about? I will make grandma understand,” said her father. Both of them were talking when grandma reached them.

“What will you make me understand? Make her understand, not me! She does all her chores with her left hand. It looks so bad.”

Neelu’s father said, “Ma, if Neelu uses her left hand, she is not at fault. It is natural. Do you know, our brain is divided into two parts? If someone’s brain is active on the left side, they work with their right hand, and if the right side is more active, they work with their left hand. Neelu’s brain is more active on the right side, so she works with her left hand. Even if she tries to work with her right hand, she will not be able to do it as well as she does with her left hand.”

“But Papa, since everything is made for the right-handed people, I face a lot of difficulties. Why did I get such a brain? How is it going to be helpful?” Neelu asked.

Her father laughed and said, “A lot. If I count them all one by one, there will be many. Let me mention one or two. Left-handed people have an excellent IQ. They are more emotional and can be good artists. There are some successful cricket players like Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh. Similarly, it is very difficult to defeat left-handed players in badminton because they can play the backhand technique very well.”

“Do you know the famous movie star Amitabh Bachchan is left-handed? Bill Gates, Mahatma Gandhi, Barack Obama, Ratan Tata and many more have earned fame and they proudly use their left hands.”

“Now, many things are being made for left-handed people too. Scissors, for example, are available especially for left-handed people too?”

Neelu’s self-confidence started strengthening after listening to her father. She realised that it was not wrong to use her left hand.

And grandma also understood that if Neelu used her left hand, it was not her fault. It was natural, so she should not worry about it, and she should stop scolding her day and night.

Neelu’s mother was smiling, too.

Suddenly something came to her mind, and she said, “Come on, let’s have dinner. I have made Neelu’s favourite dishes. Come quickly!”

Everyone served themselves and sat around the table.

Holding a spoon in her left hand, Neelu started eating, and this time grandma did not stop her.