Left - Right Reflections

Left- Right , Left- Right , Left- Right …..the mantra echoes in my mind of a long-ago march in white salwar kameez in a parade on an Independence Day or Republic Day at Fort Maidan , Palghat ( Palakkatte Kottamaidanam for the plain, unvarnished Malu– I would like to add ‘ unwashed,’too, for, contrary to widely held belief, many Malus don’t wash , or do so only once in a blue moon -) as part of my brief association with the NCC unit of Govt. Victoria College, Palghat. A highly elastic and extended teacher of English from the dawn of time, I peddle in words, meanings ,origins of words, synonyms and antonyms. As such I find the terms left and right very fascinating , full of history & potential, elastic and extensible. So here I go into their histories , mysteries , their extensions & elasticities

Right from its very origins the words indicating left have been under a cloud. The Old English word for left was ‘winstra’ meaning euphemistically ‘more friendly.’ To call the left more friendly was an attempt to propitiate the evil forces residing in the left hand side of the body. Latin, ever the boon and the bane as well, to English looms menacingly over the left side . The word in the mother of all European languages is ‘sinister’. The opposite is ‘dexter’, a word with all the most desirable associations. Call a person dexterous . He/she will bless you. Anglo-Saxon ( Old English resembling apna Sanskrit in many ways was the language of Britain in the Dark Ages ) had the word, ‘ lyft’, a close look-alike but again with the meaning ‘weak’ or ‘foolish’. It was only in the 13the century did it get its rightful place as the partner of left.

And it has been a very unequal partnership. Evil intentions lurk behind making Right the antonym of Left . As Right has another antonym, ‘Wrong’, syllogistically left becomes wrong ! But ‘Left is Right’ is the slogan of at least two schools of thought, two groups of warriors who have emerged as powerful defenders of everything ‘sinister’! One school is of the lefties, the southpaws or sinistrals as they are called…I wish I could say ‘we’ instead of ‘they’ for reasons that will be made obvious in the course of this paragraph itself. The charge of the southpaw brigade is led by American author and celebrity lefty, Rae Lindsay( the same dame with interesting titles like ‘ How to be a Perfect Bitch’ to her credit). Her iconic book, ‘ Left is Right : The Survival guide for Living Lefty in a Right Handed World ’ reveals how to be left-handed is much more than just right .It is greater than great as some of the greatest of the past from Biblical times to the living present – from David of the David and Goliath story of the Bible , Alexander , the Great, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci to the two Bills ( Clinton and Gates) ) and Oprah were/are southpaws. To the list we can add our own Shah en Shah of the acting world, Amitabh Bachan and sundry other well-known and less known individuals of your neighbourhood.

The declaration of war against right majoritarianism is long overdue. Lefties have been victims of prejudices and superstitions , leave alone the practical problems of handling the scissors, latches, doors , tools and machines of the righthanded world. It has been a world of the righthanded, for the righthanded and by the righthanded. The right hand has enjoyed a privileged position always, in nearly all cultures. Give or take with the right hand is the accepted behaviour. The lefty is obliged to artificially comply, against her/his grain. Many idiomatic expressions mirror the belief system of the right-handed 80 percent and insult the sensibilities of the sinistrals. No one likes a left-handed compliment, for instance. But that is the only compliment worth its name for the lefthanded person. ‘ Right hand man ’ is another hurting usage. The wife is ,vama or vamabhagam , the one whose position is on the husband’s left side , with insinuations of inferiority of both the position and the woman . Another matter, of course, if the husband is a lefty ! Or both are lefties !

Even in the right handed , the role of the left hand is unique. It does the dirty work sans demur. It plays its supportive role without any protest, shares all the work very co-operatively. But its services are not acknowledged in prose or verse. Work of the left hand ( daye hath ka khel ! in the sense of child’s play ) is how language dismisses &underplays the contribution of the left hand. Well, the lefties are out of the closet now , wearing the badge proudly and commading the admiration of the destrals.

The other worthies for whom Left is Right are the Leftist politicians. The origin of the use of the word for anything radical or revolutionary is more literal than ideological. All things revolutionary started with the French Revolution, not with Russia or China or even Karl Marx as some leftists might like to believe. In the National Assembly of France in 1789, the anti-monarchists sat on the left of the President and the Royalists sat to his right. The right wingers and left wingers came into being, were born in this flat , prosaic manner . No blaring of horns or beatings of trumpets . If the Left heard a Panchajanya, it was purely imaginary. But if I were to write the script of the story, I would definitely add it, because the transformative ideology that leftward thinking spawned deseve it. Lal Salaam ! In the same breath I must add that the transformation and the triumph of revolution were short-lived. The state did not wither away. It only became more authoritarian and Big Brother who symbolized the state, an out and out dictator. The communist experiment in governance only replaced one oppressive regime with another. The residue of the revolution has done workers of the free world, God’s Own Country, being the freest, a power of good. The power of collective bargaining is that residue. Shikshakaancha Ekjudice Vijayaaso !…..Teachers’ Unity zindabad !! I have shouted slogans along with my colleagues at Azad Maidan in Mumbai. Been part of boycotts, strikes, demonstrations called by unions often of the Left….sometimes of the Middle &, too. Somewhat like Lib Dem .

Which turn do I, should I take , right or left ? At strange crossroads in Mumbai or anywhere else I stand confused and often take the wrong turn , walk a little and return to take the right turn. But what I consider the wrong turn could have led me to a different , greater destination. You cant, of course , take all the turns. But when you walk forward it is always a march in response to the command Left- Right, Left- Right , Left- Right…..great moral there. Without Left there is no Right and without Right there is nothing Left.