Tough Luck

I last had my height checked as part of a health check-up exercise that was mandatory to undertake in college. If I remember correctly, I stood at 175 centimeters, give or take a few. Now for an Asian female, that is quite tall and extremely rare. This was around 6 years ago and since then I've assumed my height to remain constant at that level. While I was growing up my father used to mark my height every couple of years on a wall in our house with a pencil. Those pencil markings are still there, and when I came back home from Mumbai one weekend recently, I decided to stand against the wall just for fun and see how I measured up. Turned out, I had gained a few centimeters. I'm now closer to 5 feet, 10 inches tall. I was initially a little worried about my unexpected gain in height. I didn't think it was quite normal to still be growing at 24 years of age. 

I had, long ago, when I was still very short, seen a documentary of the Guinness World Record Holder for tallest man. He was an American. Robert Wadlow. This gentleman grew close to 9 feet tall before his body just couldn't take its own burgeoning weight and he died of a rare case of excess height, still in his early twenties. I had watched the documentary with a growing mix of sympathy and repulsion for the huge fellow. His size was astonishing. He had all his clothes specially tailored for him, a special roof to live under, a special chair to sit on, a special everything. I say 'special', but to him, it might have seemed abnormal. He had been singled out, and not for being good in class or answering a particularly difficult question of maths. He had been singled out for no deed of his own and with disregard to his willingness to be so. He was filmed, and photographed and recorded as he sped to his own death.

I cannot imagine the emotional turmoil associated with such a life. He likely never had any romantic interactions with anyone. His condition may have called into question for him, his purpose on Earth, his past deeds or karma; he may have probably been God's greatest hater. My sudden bout of growth now had me thinking about the man. I could imagine what it might feel like to be born with one life, one shot, and in that one chance, of all the billions that crawl our Earth, be the one to have this rare disorder. The odds were astronomical but the unfairness of the situation would be maddening. It would be inescapable, you'd be born with that body and you would have had to live with it. A tough life. 

As tall as I am, in a country of shorts, I feel perhaps a tiny, tiny fraction of what might have plagued my tall American friend. You see, we take for granted so many things. It could so easily have been any one of us, instead of Robert Wadlow. Our constant, unknowing refrain is "It can't be me". We take our normalcy for granted. We assume, that when a bad bout of plague hits, it will always be others who succumb, never us. When we hear of bomb blasts and terror attacks, there will always be others to die, never us. Our unassuming safety lies in our numbers. 

But Luck, that wrecker of all  havoc, that un-feeling bastard, could always one-up us and we must never, ever forget that. We must learn to be content with what we do have, we must revel in our gifts. For however abnormal you might think yourself, luck's always being more cruel to someone else.