There’s something majestic about a tall man or woman walking straight and proud. And no, I don’t just mean the ones who make you crane your neck at the airport. I mean those whose stature lies not in centimetres but in conviction.

But what do we see today? People hunched. Not from old age or osteoporosis—but from the chronic condition of bending to please.

I was watching a video of the now-former Vice-President, walking alongside the Prime Minister. And I noticed something. Every time he walked next to the PM, he stooped, almost like he was trying to whisper secrets into his shoes. Now here’s a man who, had he walked with a straight back, would have towered above the rest—literally and metaphorically. But instead, he seemed to have mistaken dignity for docility.

Poor man—he didn’t need a spine specialist; he needed a reminder that tall men shouldn’t bend.

I wish I’d met him in his childhood. I’d have told him what I tell every growing boy and girl: Walk tall. Don’t stoop to fit into the world. Let the world look up to you.

But what’s happening across our nation?

Judges who once thundered about justice, journalists who once chased truth like a good dog chases a burglar, and thinkers who once made us think—now, not walking tall anymore, but looking nervously sideways, and doubling over, because they think that truth in their next article, judgement, or speech might result in a knock on the door… or a knock to their career.

And you can’t see discomfort: They bend so much their backs have forgotten what straight feels like. Like a tree that’s been twisted for too long, they’ve grown crooked—and worse, comfortable in that crookedness.

But here’s the truth. Bending never ends well.

Not for your back. And certainly not for your backbone.

Our Gandhi was no Goliath. In physical height, the Mahatma could barely win a height contest in a kindergarten. But in moral stature? The man was Mount Everest. He didn’t need to bend. The British Empire bent to him.

And how?

With nothing more than a straight spine, a spinning wheel, and a stubborn insistence on truth.

So today, to all those towering figures I see stooping in TV studios (oh yes that fellow has bent himself silly), in bureaucratic corridors, in newsrooms—stop bending. Stand tall. Not arrogantly. But firmly. With integrity as your backbone and conscience as your compass. You were made to rise above, not to blend in.

Because here’s the truth: if you bend too long, too often, and too far—one day you’ll try to straighten up, and like our poor ex-VP, something will snap. And when that happens, all the kings men won’t be able to put Humpty- Dumpty together again.

So, walk tall, dear reader. Even if you’re short. Because spine has nothing to do with height—and everything to do with courage…!

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