Photo: Palashranjan Bhaumick, 1986
I am teaching myself to be ambidextrous. As a first step, I have started vacuuming with my left hand. There is a clear difference in the movement control between my right hand and left. The right hand has muscle memory built over six decades while the left is just beginning to develop it. Of course, there are many tasks to which both hands contribute equally. For instance, typing this post. I notice that while typing both hands and fingers have the same level of motor skills. They work in unison. They automatically divide the keyboard into equal halves.
It is perhaps a bit silly to say this but I feel my right hand has become a control freak while left has become subservient. There is a clear pecking order between the two when it comes to recurring tasks. Lately, I have begun to think that my left hand secretly resents my right's obsessive need to be in charge of manual tasks. So it is just as well that while writing/typing they both exert equal importance. However, when it comes to chopping vegetables, the right still takes charge while the left plays a contributory role of holding vegetables down firmly. One can argue that both are equally important requirements but my left hand does not believe that.
My most aspirational objective in my quest to be ambidextrous is to be able to both write and paint with my left hand with the same level of facility as my right. I am not confident if I will ever get there but I think it is important for me to try. There ought to be democracy in the way our limbs are used. I am aware that the left side of the brain controls the right side of our body and vice versa but I don't know why that is. It means while I am right-handed, I am left-brained.
I am not quite sure if ambidexterity is innate or acquired when it comes to tasks such as handwriting and painting. Going by so many other tasks, where both hands play an equal role, it would seem that ambidexterity is not necessarily innate.
Among the only times when my left hand feels as consequential as my right is when the latter has an itch and cannot scratch itself. I am working on creating a sense of equity between the two. After all, I cannot have my limbs resenting, or worse, fighting each other.