Of broken glasses and my life....

A few years back, one of my friends had posed a question that went something like: how do you make an able sighted person and me blind at the same time? The answer was simple as it is today... Take off my glasses and ask the other person to wear them! Such is the condition of my eyesight. However due to the rapid advances of science and optics, that invented the glasses, I never have bothered much about this state. But this Sunday, I was drawn back to this realization when my bulky body comforted on the bed, until … Crash! It brought my relaxation to a screeching halt, and the reality dawned on me that lying atop squarely on them, I had broken my only pair of glasses.

The soothsayers, will jump and tell you that every person like me has an extra pair. Yes, true, I too keep an extra pair, actually two. But they don’t realize that this was the second extra pair that I just broke. But this is nothing new to me.

I have been adept at breaking them since I first wore those eight years back. I could break them during all states of activities – playing, Jogging, talking or when I was just sleeping. Confused? Imagine a fat slob jogging and a beautiful gal passes by. Crash! Or just imagine him talking. All the frustrations are finally taken out on that week old frail pair of manmade eyes. Boom! Or just sleeping with them on, you don’t want to miss that sweet little thing in your dreams, and you just turned and rolled to kiss her. Wham!

So, I have a long tryst with them, an innings wherein I have scored an half century in my own right and still stay unbeaten, taking my standards up a notch at a time, couple of times every two months or so. But time has taught me not to excel only here but also how to feign that you can see all when you can’t even make out Mallika Sherawat from Salman Khan (I know that they both don’t believe in covering the upper part of their torso, though that is where the similarity ends).

It is very easy in the class – just keep scribbling with your pen, nod your head twice every minute and you are done. In the cricket field it is even easier-go out to bat, take a wild swish, thump the bat onto the ground or kill the air with it depending on where the ball went and whether the wicketkeeper is jumping or it is your captain clapping from the sidelines. For detailed classes, rush to your TV now – Indian batting starting in a minute, and Prof. Sehwag is opening. However, for good measure, you can tell all that you are wearing your contacts, and no one will ever cast a shadow of doubt on you. And when you are normally used to colliding with people and things even with your glasses on, people will not expect anything gone amiss.

Though i have been adept at all this, i was nervous as hell, because the optician had shaken his head helplessly before announcing ominously that they can only be repaired in two days, this was the first time that this has happened since I was in Mumbai and also had important meetings lined up with my boss during the same time (Read: Performance appraisal) and I couldn’t afford to miss them but it was risky to go out in the crowded streets of Mumbai, when the world is just a canvas of modern art beyond six inches of your eyes. However, i decided to try, and hoped that i not be killed in that process.

Then for the first time i understood why people loved Mumbai. You go out, stand in the middle of the road and people will push you to the station, you stand at the station and lo behold you are in the train, position your fat self at sixty eight degrees to the gate and you will get down... You want to get into the bus? Nah! Got you here! Lazy boy, you can’t depend on the crowd here – The buses' platforms are raised. Somehow i reached office and for the first time in my life i realized the importance of my learning from the school – tell your colleagues about the new contacts you just bought, but a little change in the strategy – you have to scribble less and nod more to whatever the boss utters. Today finally the one year old project is completed and I think my nods will have managed me a decent rating. Amen!

Using a similar strategy in the morning, I reached home. On the way though I broke a number of thumbs I climbed on, and a little more small nebulous stuff that I kept climbing on, and just escaped being beaten twice in the process, but then nobody cares in Mumbai, stepping on toes and small collisions are normal. Today, I love you my school, I love Mumbai. Today, I think it’s a good idea to feign visibility than to actually wear glasses and see the mess that I am living in. I wonder how many of the zillions here would be doing that daily. But now finally, I got my glasses back and can now again see the objects and people that I'm colliding with!

So, when i reached home i was careful enough to place the pair of my repaired spectacles this time at a safer place – two meters away from the circumference i roll my body in. And, I cursed myself again – right beside the place I kept my glasses; lay my pair of contacts that I had completely forgotten about! Damn!