“You mean wear clothes. Thanks
anyway, I’ll manage.” “Hey! Why are your eyes popping
out?”
I made good my escape. I kept my
eyes to the road. I didn’t want to
see anybody that I should recog-
nize but couldn’t. It was too early
for most, so I made it to the shop
without any more social casualties.
I gave him the prescription and
convinced him that I needed it the
same evening. He agreed. I guess
he understood. I couldn’t make out
if he wore glasses. “’Coz I can’t hold them back any
more.”
On my way back there were no
problems till…I heard a female
voice that I recognized.
“You know, contacts don’t suit
you”.
“I was writing notes.”
“Show me”.
“Why what happened to the cage
that used to hold them back?” I made my way to the podium and
handed over the corpus delicti.
“I threw away the stifling barrier to
liberté. You mind?” “What is this?”
“Not as long as you can see me”.
“Unfortunately the only parts of
your face that I can faintly see are
your humongous nose and the gold
teeth underlining it”.
“So you broke your glasses?”
“Smart deduction, Watson”.
I peered at what I had scribbled,
but couldn’t decipher the scrawl.
“I don’t know ma’am”.
I left the class before being asked to.
I heard that she made a last minute
change in the timetable and taught
about the perils of sleeping in her
class. This included the pathogen-
esis of the trauma that may follow.
I put a “do not disturb sign’ on my
door and slept.
“Good you told me, I was about to
ask you.” “How dare you walk around? You
are a public menace”. “Now it is too late. You have
bought them. Now you might as
well continue with bad taste, which
you may have acquired at quite
a price. Can’t let good money go
down the drain”. This time I walked away, know-
ing this person’s persistence, my
patience would soon give way to
blows. I heard something about
a walking time bomb, behind my
back. I awoke at sundown, rushed to the
optician’s. He was waiting for me.
I took the glasses and wore them.
The haze that had befallen my life
lifted. Everything looked so clear
that as I paid up I ordered for a
spare pair of spectacles.
“No, I’ll throw these away”, I
fidgeted with my eyes and threw
the imaginary lens to the ground. I turned around and he rushed
away.
“You think that I am a fool? You
couldn’t have done that”.
“Surprise! Take a closer look”.
“You shouldn’t ask me to do such
things in public. What will people
think?”
88
“Why was your head on the table?”
“Fine! Let’s go behind the bushes”.
She walked away in a huff.
Soon another freak popped up like
a jack-in-the-box.
I walked to the class early and sat
somewhere in the middle where I
wouldn’t be noticed.
This is an article by Dr. Tony George Ja-
cob from his undergraduate days.
Even before the class could get
midway, the teacher screamed
shrilly, “You there in the blue check
shirt, in the sixth row, get up. You
are sleeping!”
Having identified the details as
those of my own, thanks to some
good neighborly nudges, I stood
up. “Ma’am I am not sleeping. I
am myopic.”
Dr. Tony George Jacob
Asst. Proff., Dept. of Anatomy