Get shorty....err

I was thin once upon a time. And tall. As a child. A bit of a beanstalk with golliwog curls and lanky limbs. All that went out the window when I turned 13; puberty met me and I met rice. Suddenly I stopped growing in height and instead started growing into what the Delhi punjabi’s call ‘halthy girl, ji’. At 5 feet and 3 AND a half inches I stopped and grew upwards no more. I was sorely disappointed because I have lovely tall parents, a tall grandmother (maternal), grandfather (paternal), uncle (maternal) and cousins (paternal). My genes (which I am assuming also decide height besides every other human characteristic) had ignored all these tall people genes and given me the genes of the short people of our family, my other grandparents and adorable aunts.

Life is just not fair.

The Nik who was always instructed to call me ‘jiji’ (which is what you call your elder sister in UP) consistently ignored the instruction and just called me ‘shorty’ or ‘moti’ or ‘fatty’ (the latter two meaning exactly the same, just in different languages) instead – both more than somewhat true. The ‘shorty’ is a far more hurtful reminder of my errant genes. The ‘fatty’ is being addressed by my saintly 6am visits to the gym. Nik, the lucky fella, got the right genes, and well within his teens overtook me to reach his present height of over 6 feet tall in his socks. So now he and said parents loom over me, walk in longer strides and sit at the tall peoples table while I languish at the shortbread table.

I won’t bore you with the details but I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday during which they wanted to check my height. And what did they find? That I’m five feet and two and a half inches. Can you bl**dy believe it? A WHOLE inch shorter than I have always thought/ been told/ measured at. I was so upset when the doctor first told me this that I rather angrily asked him if someone else could come in and check this fact as I was pretty certain of my height. A rather surly nurse came in, instructed me to ‘stand straight child’ and reconfirmed the doctors findings. By this time I was more agitated than angry and insisting that I had had my height taken a million times before and there was no way I could be only 5’2”1/2. I insisted on being checked against another height chart. So nurse, doctor and I traipsed across the hall to another office and checked my height against the chart there. Still 5’2”1/2.

Completely leaving aside why I had originally gone to the doctor I went into explanation demanding mode, demanding to know how I could have shrunk. The poor doctor had no answer except that ‘maybe in India they took your height measurement wrong”. What? My whole life, numerous times – how likely is THAT?

I came into office in the middle of the day still very upset about this change in my height. And I told anyone who would listen to my woes about this shocking shrinkage. Stood back to back with loads of colleagues who all seemed to think they were more than 5’3” and it turns out I’m taller than them. So either the doctor or his charts were wrong or everyone is living in dream world about their height.

There is no rational explanation for how this has occurred. I’ve either started shrinking naturally 20 years too early (the doctor thinks this is highly unlikely). Or I’ve always been this height and in a race to be giraffe like convinced myself that I’m taller than I am. Or I’m 5’3”1/2 and the doctor just got it wrong. I prefer the last explanation thank you very much.

This is a very upset (and apparently very short) 31 year old signing off.

And Nik, if I hear laughter, even at this distance, you are in DEEP trouble young man!