Height Issues

Ever heard of a myth that says, ‘there’s a moment in your life when whatever you say eventually comes true’??? Well, if you thought it was a myth, think about it again. Long long ago (not centuries, just years), there was a time all of us (most of us, can’t say about the nerds who thought playing card games was non-productive :-p) played WWE card games. That time, someday, looking at my then favourite player Randy Orton’s card, I said to my sister “I want to be as tall as him one day.” And then I and my sister laughed real hard thinking it’s as impossible as ‘Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani’ making it to the Oscars. Don’t know if I offended my stars or something, but that very moment, my fate decided to teach me to measure my words before I speak.

 When you’re a kid, all you do is lean against a wall and measure your height, and then mock at friends who were shorter. In my case, I had always been on the mocking end, except for the time when Arth Shukla entered the battleground (for those who don’t know, Arth happens to be the bestest of my pals, who was also my arch rival when it came to height issues. We shared not just assignments and cricket bats, but also our birthdays, and he walking by my side was the only time I felt short). You visit your family friends and they give you compliments on your height, your class teacher calls you to wipe the black-board off (don’t know why, but at least I, being a primary school student felt privileged doing so), you could stand at the end of the row in the assembly and sleep right through your principle’s epic seeming ultra extended speeches, you could be a teacher authorised back-bencher in the class and eat your lunch whenever you want to.

But since all good things come to an end, the overjoyed feeling of being tall turned into a sudden worry. When you’re out of secondary school, you suddenly realise being 6’(I was 6’ then) at old ancestral places(like my aunt’s bungalow where I banged my head on the door panel and broke a curtain pelmet) was like being Shakeil  O’ Neil to the normal world. And then begins an era that shows you the dark side of being tall. You could not ride your sister’s scooty as both your knee hit either the horn or the self-start and you looked like an elephant trying to torture a poor little mouse when you sat on it(on the brighter side, that’s the sole reason my parents got me a mo-bike, in spite of knowing I couldn’t even differentiate between the brake paddle and the shifting paddle then), you have to start watching your head for not hitting entrances and your keep your hand away from the ceiling fan, your parents(especially mommy) start giving you tasks like dumping things at the attic and taking them out the very next day. You have to change lamps every now and then. In fact, there was a time when I thought that even god was on his sadistic peak, making me change the CFLs every now and then (or maybe it was the electrician who messed up the circuitry). Wiping the ceiling fans was a pain in the ass task that only you’re supposed to do because your servants could enjoy being short heighted and you had to bear the brunt. And slowly and steadily as you reach college, you realise you’re 6’3”, and the places where you used to hit your head with are now touching the tip of your nose. You could neither show, nor see the copies of the friends sitting behind you in the exams as turning back of such a big person would certainly catch attention. But despite all the foresaid troubles that you go through, there’s always an advantage that you’ll have over the rest, and that is, leverage in sports. Right from being able to release the ball from a good height in cricket, to being able to put away high smashes in table tennis to being able to check your opponent from scoring a two pointer at 45 in basketball and finally a high release service in tennis, you name it and if you’re tall, you’ve got it(it’s all ‘ideally’, this doesn’t mean you can head to the basketball court and keep your opponent from making  a count right away, or always make an impeccable serve at the first go :-p). Always think of your height as an asset and not a shortcoming (because you’re already long  :-p, bad joke I know, but a serious request). There might be instances when your friends would call you a giant or something(I was called ‘The Chhattisgrahi Khali’ by the end of my schooling days), but always remember that if there’s a crowd and  they get lost, you’d be the first person they’d look for. And finally, if someone asks you ‘how does it feel being this tall’, rather than saying ‘I wish I was a couple of inches shorter’, say ‘I love being this tall. Because I Always Get To Look Down Upon People While They’ll Look Upto Me’. So, ‘Congratulations’ if you’re tall and ‘Better luck next time’ if you’re not. :-)