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Distant Dream

M N Mustafa
THIRTY years ago. the length and breadth of the bride or those of the groom were not Important factors to determine the ehgi btllty In marriage. Today these are important considerations — preference being always for the tailer One of my sisters-In-law. ‘being shorter In height then her husband did not pray to the Creator either to increase her or reduce her husband In height She sought a practical solution. What God did not give her, she sought an alternative from the cobbler. She raised heels of her shoes few Inches more to get nearer the height of her husband. And none of the couples grumbled at the solution. Some claim that too tall persons tend to be foolish and too small ones are foul in conduct Explaining this they say that in the taller man common sense is stretched out and therefore intelligence stands thinned. In case of small man Just the reverse happens. Common sense and goodness remain concentrated and bogged up and therefore not applied Yet many small men were gallant fighters including Sultan Mahmud who invaded India seventeen times and every time returned victorious President Charles de Gaulle was never accused of wanting tn intelligence.
Another tall man left examples of unsavoury Intelligence He was President Idi Amin who. called a monster by his enemies, harassed his British enemies in many ways. Once a British delegation wanted an audience with him. He granted it not In the capital, but at his village home. Here houses had no normal doors, but a round hole just above the floor. For entry or exit one had to crawl in or out. As the members of the British delegation were crawling in through the hole, a photograph was taken keeping Idi Amin within the frame. It appeared, as if the British delegates bowed down before the mighty Amin. Next day'the photograph appeared In newspapers. .
Again, during the annual conference of the Organization
of African States IOASI idi Amin as the chairman decided to go to the conference not by a car. but by a palanquin to carried by four white bearers. To the dismay of many, four white bearers were procured and they carried the palanquin with Amin aboard on their shoulders. The Dally Guardian of London published the photograph with a caption: White man s burden.
Hazrat Adam, the first man. was said to be a very tall man So was his consort. Eve. who •almost matched her husband in height. These are claims not backed by proofs. Mythology claims in Sri Lanka, a spot named as Adam's feed measures about seventy feet. It certainly did not represent the size of Adams feet. In that case Adam dwarfs all men for all time.
Tall man is almost every woman's dream and vice versa. But this does not mean that the short man or. for that matter. the short woman goes out of circulation and not at all in demand In the matching market. There are couples, happily lived, who are Ill-matched in physical heights, but mentally made a good compound of soothing virtues. Once Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah. who was presiding over a meeting of School Broadcast Committee of Radio Pakistan was jokingly reminded by Begum Zobeda Khanam that Allah had given him bigger brain but small size. Ptecfous things like diamonds were found In small bits not in bulk. Only coal could be find in big slices, quipped Dr. Shahidullah.
The tallest or the smallest men do not enjoy special phys teal benefits except their visual impact' which bring them or their maintainers financial benefits. The tallest living man now (8 feet 1 inch) Is Gabriel Estavao MonJane lb. 1944) works In a Portugeese
circus. The tallest living woman Is Mulia (b 1956) of Borneo who is over 7 feet tall. Ail of them suffer from one or another kind of malfunctioning of their systems Nature does not seem to go well with their size.
In Nature particularly In fauna, the same species has the bigger and smaller versions. The tiger has the cat the big crocodile has the minute lizard, the largest fleas (Hystrlchopsylla Schefferi) has the minion flies Mankind do not seem to have such contrasting diminutives and demons except in writers fancy.
In recent history, few inordinately tall men posed problems for their hosts besides at tractlng curious attention from their spectators When Charles de Gaulle visited Canada his hosts had to place order to a furnisher for a longer and big ger bed for their unusually tall guest. The furnishers had to fly one of their men to Paris to Cthe correct measurement the bed. Similar problems were also posed by former President Idi Amin to his hosts because of the larger volume of his physique. In India a similar problem was faced sometimes ago by the hospital authorities in Bhopal where a eight-footer Mangai Singh Shahu was admitted but could not be properly accommodated as no bed was larger then six foot. The problem however was temporarily solved by putting two beds together.
The advantages enjoyed and the disadvantages suffered by being taller than those of aver age run have been shown by Jonathan Swift In his book Gulliver's Travels and Lewis Carrol in Alice In Wonderland. Gulliver, because of his unmanageable demonic size was unable to get lost in the crqwd when It was necessary, and Alice, when she grew bigger
after eating the cake could not negotiate easily through the desired passage Dispropor donate size of both of them inspired awe in the minds of their viewers no doubt but frightening appearance, apart from arousing curiosity from a safer distance, never brought the viewed and viewer closer
No creative author other than Jonathan Swift, mocked successfully at the relative size of men —- the demoniac and the dwarfish man. He has also shown the relative advantages and disadvantages of the taller and shorter man Many of Swift s critics did not love him for his so-called misanthropy, directly or indirectly poured out of his pen.
The tall people, besides dwarfing others, confront many practical problems As they are exceptions, the peo pie of average size often break unsavoury jokes on these people Sir Winston Churchill, during the Second World War. could not make Charles do Gaulle agree on some of his war plans and he disdainfully called de Gaulle a heavy cross to bear'
Sometimes taller people have been found to take full advantage of their height. Aesop, the famous Greek storyteller was a dwarf. On being asked to take a baggage to a certain place by his master, he preferred to take the heaviest fruit basket. His friends laughed at his folly of carrying the heavy bag. On reaching the station, his master found the fruit basket empty. The tall friends of Aesop ate up ail fruits from the basket on way to the destination and Aesop, just carried the empty basket.
A tall man once went to buy orange. He looked at the or anges for a few moments and l hen was quietly passing away On being asked by the pedlar as to why he was not buying any orange the tall man referred to th<* small size of the oranges. At this the pedlar quipped. "Sir orange never looks bigger if viewed from the Himalayas. Get down and you will find them bigger."