‘What is your height?’

That was a straight-forward, dry question, posed by an ex-colleague from a former company without any prompt or courtesy. This was much before the world of apps took over all facets of life. 

He had the look of a serious professor who was quizzing the class about a lesson planned for the day. 

Duh!

I looked up from my seat, with a blank expression on my face. 

That question had come out of the syllabus (as they say these days), and, being an eternal skeptic, I posed, ‘Why would you want to know that?’

Unperturbed by the irritation in my tone, he retorted: ‘Just tell me…how tall are you?’

For someone who relies on a kitchen stool to pick items from the top cabinet, the question felt like a slap of sarcasm. Or so I thought. My height has never been an issue of contention. The probability of that happening in an office setup was almost zero. 

‘Are you under five?’ he wagered.

‘NO’ I almost screamed. I wasn’t in the mood to play any number game.

In the height of things, short is hardly ever celebrated. And so we have ‘shortcomings’, and we face ‘shortfalls’ and ‘short tempers’ and even get ‘short shrift’. It is on par with the backlash that the colour black gets – ‘blackmail’, ‘blacklist’, black market’, ‘black sheep’…

But the connotations that ‘black’ holds are far worse than those associated with ‘short’ – despite studies proving that height does have an impact on salary and a host of other things, even today.

I have yet to see a short model walking the ramp – or perhaps I am lazy in following new trends. It is all about the set benchmarks for beauty, which have a big say on height, even weight. 

Should that matter?

Hardly. 

But it did matter to this ex-colleague, who had a weird reason for assessing my height. 

His reason: A marriage proposal from a prospective bride’s family.

He was doing the mathematics. He was calculating his height (which was an inch or two more than mine) and weighing it against that of the new bride to be, who he was hoping was taller than me, to sire children who were above average in height.

So what did it have to do with my height? 

Nothing! It was just another one of those comparative clauses to feel validated.