Left or Right

On a summer afternoon, two of us were playing a game of Ping Pong. The year and place are trivial to this discussion. I don’t know if it was after a ping or a pong, but the effect was BANG! The ball hit right on my right eye and a lot of tears left from both right and left. My challenger across the table quipped “Your right eye is not right!” Almost immediately I replied “But, my left eye is left”. Right there it was. A Pong for a Ping! Playing with what was left in my own right, I hit the ball left and right and left as a winner from the game.

All these years, whenever I write in English, I marvel at the power of the language with simple words such as Right and Left. Let us go back to the game. My challenger, a politician, was (and probably still is) a Rightist; Standing at the right side of the table, using the right techniques, playing the game right, right handed. Everything about him was Right. At the end of the game, having lost the game, he was left with a wry smile when I called him a left wing politician, directionally.

I am a Righty; not a Rightist. In Tennis, I like a righty who plays lefty. In music also, I like a righty who plays lefty. I am not sure if the lefties are left-brained and the righties are right-brained. Suddenly, I feel the fun element from the two words is missing in our dialogue. Let us bring in fictitious characters: Joe Right and John Left. Obviously, they both are Americans.

Joe Right and John Left have been friends since school days. Let us pick a super-bowl evening for the narration. Right and Left settled in front of the television at a friend’s place, with the super-bowl ritual of burgers, bites and a case of beers. The action-packed game had it all: Touch-downs, Field goals and striking passes. Joe and John got high and started a mini ballgame, right there in the hall. They were anything but upright and totally uptight. A pass from Joe hit the ceiling and bounced a couple of times, breaking the loosely fit coffee table in both sides. There was a lame joke from Joe on something about a coffee break or needing a coffee break which John summarily dismissed and disapproved of.

The game and the beer got over. The reality sunk in. Joe and John, always team men, split the work half and half. They made an agreement that the table would be fixed prior to both leaving for their respective homes. Joe would fix the right side of the table and John would fix whatever was left. Right, a loner, lived left and left alone. Left lived right and in his mind at least, lived right.

When the pact came to fixing the coffee table, Joe Right did the right and left. John Left left in a hurry without keeping his part of the bargain. So, on that very occasion, Right right right right, left and turned left and Left left left, left and turned right. Cheers!

[Right (noun) right (verb) right (adjective) right (adverb), left (verb) and turned left and Left (noun) left (verb) left (adjective), left (verb) and turned right.]