Double Battery Single Power: The Blurry Reality of my Life

I am almost as blind as a bat in daylight. Without my glasses or contact lenses , the whole world is just blurry blurry dim. If I were to be stranded on an island, my glasses would be the only life support I would need. Inspite of that, I hate them with every bone in my body. I have worn glasses for as long as I can recollect. I started going down 'fuzzyland' around 7th class, when at school I found myself doing all kinds of visual acrobatics as I struggled to jot down from the blackboard. But I did'nt realise I might be going myopic... not even when I very confidently read out random crap from the blackboard while the teacher stared at me nonplussed, and the entire class was in splits. Things only got worse from then on. I winked, squinted and went cross eyed trying to read and go about my life . Catching the right bus home without landing up on the other side of town had become a daily grind. Eventually I gave up and told my parents, who predictably and immediately went into denial. They thought I was faking it, their reasoning being, because neither of them wore glasses, it was genetically impossible for me to be afflicted with myopia ...fact that they never read, or watched TV as much as I did, did'nt seem to be much of a contributing factor. Oh they had tons of similar very questionable illusions in life including the "you are not overweight at all..you simply look like you are from a nice khaate peete ghar ki" Meanwhile, my mom started hyperventilating when she had visions of me ending up as 60 yr old spectacled spinster. And then my doctor went into shock, when he checked my eyes and saw that I was actually going to school and functioning just ok without glasses (if only he knew !! ). My myopia started off with a -2, and I was told if I wore them reguarly I would'nt need them one day(I am still waiting for that day !).

And thus I entered the visually handicapped category for life . As much I was relieved that I could see and read clearly again (so ecstatic I read everything from billboards, shopsigns, license plates ...sab kuch ), I never liked the glasses, or how I looked with them. So any comment as casual as 'Hey, you look different with those glasses' used to open up my floodgates. No amount of but-you-look-nice-with-them would stop my bawling. I had begun to think the glasses had transformed my whole pschyche into behanji mode and I was never going to be the cool chick who wore sunglasses or flirtingly flutterred her eyelashes at guys (oh my priorities in life at 12 !!) . I was stuck pushing the specs up my nose, wiping the rainwater off them or steaming them up while cooking....for ever.

One day I was cycling back home from school. At an intersection I had to cross the road and as usual I looked back and put out my right hand to signal. As I was about to cross, out of nowhere two guys on a bike landed up right behind me and started yelling "Eh double battery single power, dikhta nahi hein kya ??" More than the shock of a possible collision (which was btw entirely their fault , whizzing past like that at an intersection), I was furious for being called that. So angry that almost for a month after that I used to curse that they and their whole khandaan would wear 'soda glasses' for the rest of their lives...you know those hideously thick glasses that made the person look like a Martian with eyes the size of golf balls.

And so "Dhapne","Chashmish" , "Double battery single power" were terms of endearment I had to make peace with. As much as I hated my glasses, I figured it was better to look like a nerd/martian than to make a complete fool of myself like a friend once did. We were out on a walk one night after dinner when she exclaimed what a beautiful full moon it was. The rest of all looked all around to see the moon, only to realise this chashmish, who would'nt be caught dead wearing her glasses, was in fact gushing over a white halogen street lamp !!

Eventually, I changed to contact lenses and things were not so bad anymore. Except, once you decide to go glass-free, contact lens wearers sign up for a whole new set of issues. The everyday morning fight to get them in, the silent prayers that you don't get caught in a duststorm or a stray eyelash decides to commit suicide by jumping into your eyes and make you go ballistic in between a lecture, or a meeting.

But now atleast I can strut around in sunglasses :-D ...ah , the small pleasures of life

Amrika Darshan: Phase 1- The planning

May 9th 2005: It had been a year since we were married, so Sri decided to make a short trip here so we could atleast celebrate our first anniversary together. Meanwhile I was just scared that I might not recognise him after so long. We were really excited and I planned for months on the places to visit and dishes to be prepared and the people to be met. I created an elaborate excel spreadsheet, filled up an entire diary with airline and hotel deals and after almost two months of gruelling 'research' the itinerary was ready. Now you would wonder 'itna fight maarne ki kya zaroorat hein ? . But when you are a graduate student, there is no other way you (+1) can visit places from New York to California unless you spent hours and hours finding out the best (read cheapest) airfare and hotel deals. The research will not go waste ...I guarantee that . Because at the end of it , you will be amazed at how much you can save . And the immense joy you will experience when you can point and laugh at those poor souls who tell you that they payed through their nose for the same trip :-) .
Another reason for the ironclad itinerary was because Sri was going to be here for just three weeks and wanted to see as much Amrika as possible. So basically I had to work on a shoestring budget coupled with a tighter schedule ..I could'nt have been prouder of what I planned.

The plan was to basically cover most of the standard places every visiting desi went to...you know Niagara , New York, Universal Studios etc etc. The advantage was that it would be that much easier for your folks back home to recognise most of the places.

You (screaming on the phone thanks to that 8c/min calling card) : "Did you get the pictures amma ? ...sorry I did'nt get time to write details of each picture on the back. "

Mom (screaming at the other end coz her voice has to reach all the way to the US ) : "Oh don't worry molle...I recognised the places immediately. You went to "Neeeagara Faals", "Umpire State Building" and that big valley in caalifornia, no ?. Just last week, Mrs Perumal came back from Ameriga after visiting her son and showed me her pictures. Their pictures were also taken at the exact same spots "

You: "oh amma you should have said that earlier , i could have send some chocolates and these photos with her only ...could have saved me that much postage. "

Anyways, week 1 , we were to make pit stops at Chicago, stay a day at Niagara, breeze through New York on to DC and then back to IC. Week 2 and 3 were spent between IC and California visiting friends ...and Shamu !!!

Looking back, although the trip was exhausting , it was a lot of fun . We got to spend a lot of time with each other and for the first time I did'nt mind the 2 hour wait at the airport or that overnight greyhound journey !!! Now I am already having crazy ideas about taking a road trip through the US or who knows ...maybe even go backpacking through Europe ..anyone ???