A Handy Movement

Leena Kamat

    Zaara[1] was born left-handed.[2] Or maybe she wasn't, but she just preferred to use her left hand. No, it must be that somewhere in her early childhood she suffered some traumatic event that sparked her defiance of right-handedness. Because you see, being right-handed was normal. It was the natural way. There had simply been no other acceptable way in the quaint town of El Derecho.[3]

Still, Zaara for some reason just could not use her right hand the same way she could use her left. Her parents tried to teach her to use her right hand; in fact, for a while they would supervise her while she was eating and doing homework to make sure she didn't sneak in that sinister left hand.[4] She did not understand what was wrong with her. Her teacher would gaze at her disapprovingly, and her classmates would snicker as she used the wrong hand.

One time, she accidentally jabbed her elbow very hard into Jill, the girl that was sitting next to her and writing with the "right" hand.

"You freak!" Jill had growled, "Get that nasty hand away from me." Jill then requested another seat, which the teacher promptly granted.[5]

After that incident, Zaara was determined to learn to be right-handed. However, she was so upset and preoccupied with this goal that she was not able to concentrate on the actual tasks that needed to be performed with the hand. She started turning her homework in late because she was concentrating more on improving the manual dexterity of her awkward right hand than learning the material.[6]

The kids in her class were also not receptive to her renewed efforts. "Dude, check out the freak trying to write with her right hand like us," Jay muttered under his breath to Serena.

"Oh my God, what a dork," Serena replied disgustedly, "Look, she can't even do it right -- her hand is all fluttering. Plus, no matter what, she'll always be a freak.”[7]

When Zaara's next report card came out, she had a C average, whereas when she had been using her left hand, she had mostly A's and B's. Zaara was very depressed; her parents were angry at her performance and her inability to adjust the use of her right hand, and she felt completely alone.