I was born with six fingers in my right hand. My parents decided not to put it to the trash as somebody told them it is supposed to bring luck. I do not recollect how it looked when I was born. My earliest memory of my tiny sixth finger were those embarassing moments in the Biology class where the teacher would always take me as an example for that weird mutation caused congenital malformation or whatever they called it (hexadactyly). And if the teacher had forgotten about me, there were a bunch of guys to shout 'He has has it!!!'
Upset by these, I asked my parents to chop it off. They explained me how lucky I was to get the sixth finger. When I was very small, some 5 months old, a bunch of people kidnapped me for human sacrifice. They put me in a sack and took me in a cart and I was without food for 2 days. Then they put me in front of the idol and started chanting and finally when they were ready for the sacrifice, they noticed that I had six fingers and realized that I had been 'blessed by the gods' and they immediately took me back to my parents and apologised for what happened. They also gave lot of gold coins to my parents. Anyways, that was long back. The Biology classes would make me wish that it would have been better if they had indeed sacrificed me.
Time heals...well time also changed things. My sixth finger soon became attractive to most of the girls. I no longer had to hide them. Though the guys felt that it was the ugliest thing, the girls always wanted to touch it and shower with nice words. She would say - 'How cute?' and a butterfly would fly in my stomach. 'Can I touch it?' and another butterfly would fly in my stomach with that 'madhura sparsham'. Then she would hold my palm and feel the finger... and my stomach would be full of butterflies. 'Does it pain?' I would say... 'nooo go ahead hold it for some more time. Its all yours!'. 'Do you feel the touch?' (Ofcourse.... I can feel it!!!! ;-) ) 'Can you move just your this finger?' 'Do you cut your nails?' 'How do you cut your nails? Does it pain?' 'Can you hold anything with it?' This question was the best one as I would get the oppurtunity to touch them back. I would hold her palm and slowly touch (thotum-thodathiyum) with it and it would tickle her as if I was brushing her with a peacock feather and she would stretch her hand all the way and holding her ears to her shoulder, controlling herself and meanwhile spreading the 'prema-gandham', then, I would slowly pinch her arms and my mind,speech and deed would all be in three different directions, all lacking clarity. My god.... you should see her smile and laugh when I do that.....Man! I was indeed lucky.
It seems the Panda bears have six fingers too and they use it for eating, though I could do everything as usual, I have never used my finger for anything else. It is as smooth and soft like a baby's finger. Being soft it was prone to all injuries. Even the edges of a paper would tear and cut my finger and bleed profusely. It was sensitive too, I remember once when the teacher hit me with a cane and it hit my little finger and it pained terribly, it was like how it would have been if a 'pain gets an headache' - unbearable.
My extra finger does not trouble me except I sometimes have problem wearing gloves, or when I go to the bowling alley and I have to use my left hand. With a hope of getting into the Limca book of records, I would practice to write by keeping the pen inbetween my thumbs. Then I would sometimes keep pens inbetween every finger and I could keep five of them and then would paint using all of them at the same time. No luck on that yet!
By the by,recent studies indicate that the sixth finger is a dominant trait and it has a selective advantage and its time that more and more people will have six fingers in their hands. Who knows, tomorrow a five fingered person will be considered weird and taken as an example in their biology class. Looking forward for that day......
