The Other Lens - Repeat Telecast

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http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/a/bifocals.asp

As I said, as soon as I reached IIT KGP in 1965, the sties in my eyes fell off from me like lead into the sea, like the albatross from the neck of the ancient mariner:

 The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

So, I guess there is some truth in the so-called environmental allergy.

Then on, till 1984 when I was 41, I didn't have to subject myself to opthalmoscopes and their owners. I was seeing more than what was good for me...warts and all...

Till, one day, I realized I couldn't read my favorite small print column of the Statesman Hundred Years Ago anymore.

My wife then suggested I consult the campus eye-doc, a young chap who sat part-time in the Tech Market. I was dubious as I ever was about eye-docs but thought let me give him a try. 

And then he asked me to read the chart on the wall which I read like a poem. And he said my far-vision was more than ok. 

Then he thrust in front of my eyes some instrument like a handheld 4-sided magic lamp with fine print written on its sides. And I could absolutely not make out any of the printing. 

And then he inserted a lens in front of my eyes and lo and behold, it was a revelation! I could read every blessed word and more...I thanked him for making me literate again and started wearing bifocals that needed a lot of adjustment. He told me that he could give me imported lenses that had what he called adjustable focus. But I was too poor for them and Gandhi specs were fine with my pocket.

In 1994, one Sunday May morning, news came to me that my Father was dying at Gudur and I had to rush immediately. But my QM question paper had just been answered by my students the Friday before and the bundle of 25 scripts was safe in the locker of the exam section. And there was no way I could run away without grading them and upsetting the entire result schedule. So I ran to the Institute and found that fortunately the exam section was open since a JEE was going on. And the Assistant Registrar was kind enough to make a special case and issue me my bundle forthwith.

And as soon as I brought it home and started reading the answer scripts, my son, then 13, was playfully horsing around with me and since I was too busy for him, he pulled my specs off and in the process broke them into glassy powder.

I was at a loss, and since there was no point banging him, I felt like Newton and his pet dog:

Diamond was, according to legend, Sir Isaac Newton's favorite dog, which, by upsetting a candle, set fire to manuscripts containing his notes on experiments conducted over the course of twenty years. According to one account, Newton is said to have exclaimed: 

"O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done."...wiki

And my son, ever more resourceful than me, brought out the Rs 5 convex lens that I gifted him on his 6th birthday, which he was using to burn matchsticks in the KGP sun.

Needless to say, the job was done within an hour and the lucky batch walked away with more A grades than before or since....

 

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...Posted by Ishani

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The Other Gandhi - Repeat Telecast

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 http://www.angelfire.com/realm/flashthenancyboy/Handwriting/Gandhi.html

So, armed with my M. D. Uncle's heavy reco in my pocket, I gingerly entered the forbidding ophthalmology ward of the huge King George Hospital one morning at 9, cutting my classes at my University in Vizagh in 1958.

And found a bench on which there were already seated twenty or more patients suffering from various eye ailments many of them highly visible to the naked eye. And felt an intruder since I was then a young lad without specs or any obvious eye injury. 

And guilty.

The door of the doctor's chamber was manned by a forbidding matron in white overalls with a white cap (or cape). And meekly handed her my reco letter. She looked at it up and down and back and forth and front and back and returned the letter to me and asked me to take my seat at the nether end of the line without fuss.

I could then see that the massive matron completely failed to read my Uncle's scrawl which was worse than Gandhiji's; but was too proud to admit it.

I don't blame her...I have seen worse samples of handwriting in my students' answer scripts and gave them immense benefit of doubt ;)

After making us sit for a good hour, the matron, bless her soul, came to the bench with a bottle of liquid with stopper and administered one drop in each waiting eye and left.

I came to know later that the medicine she poured into us is called Atropine, an alkaloid extract from deadly plants like datura, mandrake and belladona. And it has a variety of infamous uses.

The specific use of atropine for the eye docs those ancient days was to enlarge the pupils of the eyes...some pupils.

After another hour she came and examined our eyes and when she wasn't very satisfied, she put another drop or two for good measure.

By and by, the eye-doc came in his white overalls and entered his sanctum with the flourish of a man fresh from his dubious surgery.

And we were called in one by one.

At last came my turn and I was astounded by the huge machine he had in front of his eyes...must be the latest ophthalmoscpe that the government could buy. It had an extension on its front...a corrugated scale jutting out.

And he ordered me to sit down, and that was easy. And he peered into each of my eyes by turn and apparently was not happy to find anything seriously wrong with my retina or cornea or lens or whatever. But he was too proud to admit his failure. And then he asked his matron to insert lenses one by one into the grooves of his scale and perhaps tried to focus the light beam on to my retina. And was unhappy. It looked that the light spot was right in focus without any lens whatever.

Then came the physical...

He turned the giant scope to one side and asked me to read the chart hanging on the wall at the right distance...and I read it like a breeze.

He was still not happy and turned the scale around and inserted one lens after the other asking "Is this better or is the previous one better...now...now"...turning the lenses on their axes this side and that.

This was one question I could never answer well in all my life...everything looked better than the previous one.

At last he got disgusted and I felt I failed in his viva.

And he asked me to get lost for now and collect the report in the evening.

And I ran out like a bat out of hell.

Only to face the midday sun of Vizagh in midsummer.

And my eyes hurt like they were being burned from within and without...the matron was too busy and hungry and perhaps forgot to put the antidote or whatever of atropine that would squeeze the iris back into its normal size.

I reached home somehow and slept all afternoon. And went to the ophthalmology unit to fetch my report. It read:

Right eye: Power 0.25 cyl...axis 120

Left eye: Power 0.25 cyl...axis 120

As a student of physics, I knew that 0.25 must be the least count or zero error or whatever of the lousy scope...

But my Uncle advised me to go in for specs, and those cost all my pocket money.

And I used them for a year...the sties were as fruity as ever.

One day while I was polishing my precious lenses, they fell down and broke like the ten commandments.

And I never bothered to replace them...

I got used to my sties which were easier to bear without specs hindering them.

My precious sties disappeared without trace as soon as I landed at IIT KGP, and never reappeared till now...touch wood!

 

http://lowres.jantoo.com/law-policing-parking-parking_ticket-car_park-eyesight-traffic_cop-07641202_low.jpg

...Posted by Ishani

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