Short in Body, Tall in Minds

 

Most of us keep our ambitions very lofty like the fruits very high up there among the branches of a tall tree. Then we get onto our toes, stretch our body, protrude our arms upwards to get a handhold at the object of our pursuit. That’s how life takes its course with our ever-stretched self. We have a culture of high fruits among the branches of tall trees. The more we elongate ourselves along the length of the target, the better it is taken as. No wonder, being tall is perceived as a big qualification for the game of life and shortness is simply taken as a kind of ‘disability.’

The so called ‘disability’ landed in the little yard of a poor tailor. He measured people’s hands, torso, legs, waists, wrists and chest to make fitting dresses. For the chest measurement everybody inflated for a couple of extra inches and thus rise in the tailor’s esteem. For the stomach everyone did the reverse to reach as near to the size zero mark as possible. All we want is a bit more here and a bit less there. Very rarely we are comfortable with being as we are.

The tailor was crestfallen as his measuring tape stopped at the same point while measuring their dress-making stats. They advanced in years, without adding hardly anything to their height. It was a dwarf pair of twin girls. The poor couple usually shed tears of agony for themselves and pity for the little ones.

‘I will never have the luck of making a beautiful full-grown young woman’s dress for them. It will be a kids dress forever,’ the dress maker lamented.

Those who had their aesthetics in place pitied the girls. The ones who lacked the spectrum of sensitivities in their heart would laugh at them and enjoy the sight. The parents had a permanent aching, sad corner in their hearts. Their siblings had a walkover in typical childhood rivalries and competition.

The girls grew up in age, if not in height, with a dream of rising in stature by becoming doctors. Nobody took it too seriously, taking it just a dream as they are. Most of the dreams retain their virtual status in our lives. Their little limbs carried them to the long path of passing the senior secondary certification and be eligible to appear for the NEET exam conducted for the entry to medical colleges. The so called normal girls of their age were running faster, scoring more, smiling better. They had average marks and the dream of doing MBBS was almost on the verge of becoming another broken dream. They had tried sample tests and found their marks far less than the qualifying benchmark.       

Now they smiled even lesser and walked with still smaller steps. Their ladder to the rise in the people’s esteem was almost broken. The neighbours pitied them even more. The parents had a still larger aching, sad hole in their heart. It was rapidly turning into the bylane of a sad story. They had a dream of walking with upheld stature on the main thoroughfare of life but now their situation was pushing them into the side alley of grey anonymity. They felt the bigger world would just roll over them like in a stampede. They are there just like ants to be crushed by the taller humans, they felt. 

Moosa Bhai of a charitable trust could feel their plight as they arrived to pick up their medicines at an NGO run dispensary. They looked even more diminutive having abandoned their dream of becoming doctors.

The good samaritan beamed like the silver edge of a dark mass of cloud, ‘If a person of six foot needs 600 marks in NEET to qualify for the MBBS course, you need just half of that.’

That day they almost ran to get back home. The information given by the kind gentleman was enough for them to do a bit of a search and to their immense joy they found that their physical condition was in the reserved category for the differently-abled children. It meant they will have a certain grace in qualifying marks. 

Emboldened with the new input, the tailor dived a bit deeper into his modest pockets and decided to get coaching classes for his daughters. A prestigious coaching institution turned them away citing their issue of height. The gentleman from the charitable trust approached the institute’s Kota headquarters. A bit of kindness is what separates the ‘make’ from the ‘break’. The institute HQ at Kota admitted them with a 60% fee concession. Thus was laid the foundation of realising the dream and save it from nose-diving among its unrealised brethren.

The girls knew the importance of this opportunity. It was their ropeway to lengthen their stature and thus beat the limits that biology had put on them. They didn’t want to get crushed under the bigger feet and legs in the stampede of life, living and survival. The ladder to go high and see more of life was set against the wall and they put their short legs into action to move up the rungs. They dived into the studies with so much of vigour and spirit that they would forget having even the food.

The beauty of such fights is that one starts at the subterranean level and by the time one reaches the point from where people generally start it has written a long chapter of invisible glory under the surface. Well, that’s what we mean by creating life. Blossoming a full flower from the faulty seeds is what we mean a real life. Not allowing the shortcomings to eat into your vitality like termites and get either wiped out or survive with stunted growth of character is what I take as a champion. 

The tailor’s so called ‘dwarf’ daughters, thus, rose above all odds to crack the NEET exam and look at life from the level most of us usually do without much struggle. Now they were not the kids who would look upwards helplessly to survive as becharis. For years their diminutive structures at 3.5 feet and 3.6 feet hijacked all their life, literally killing every normal dream. The qualification for the MBBS course turned them mini celebrities in the town. Their three other siblings, tailor father and homemaker mother grew in stature and were recognised as the family of the girls who had cracked the MBBS exam.

‘A doctor’s white coat of 1.5 feet is as good as that of 3.5 feet. It gets the same respect. With their little hands they will do big deeds. They will cover long distances with their tiny legs,’ the tailor said to his wife at night.

That night he had a very long and peaceful sleep as the proud father of achiever girls.