An Eve To Remember

Articles

An Eve To Remember

By Sudaman
Mar. 26, 2005

Early morning walks, birds chirping and the breeze pleasant, the slight drizzle for the pleasure and comfort, all the senses of mine pampered by the early dawn hour. Also the light blue clouds in the sky and the tinge of rising sun, the misty blades of grass and the green little dew drops, all the flowers and the color of the rainbow, the feast to the eye, the second pair of eye… The second pair of eye making my own eyes numb…

It was a reddish yellow evening and I was in a dusty vast ground. That’s in the outskirts of my native town and hardly there were two or three houses, hither and thither, marking habitation. Few houses were just sprouting up giving hopes to the already settled and each of these houses marked their World with their own thorn fences.

It was in 1990 and so I was a 11 year kid. And at that moment, I was racing towards a heaven, the foundation of the newly laid house. I had to be punctual or else I will have to keep watch of the watchman without playing the national game of our locality. ‘Hide and Seek’. The pits dug in the form of a maze forms a good place for a great game such as this. The game starts sharply at 6:00PM and it was 5:55PM. Hence I was flying over the latitude and longitude to reach the place in the right quadrant.

In few seconds I caught sight of the red heads in the pit and from then on I started to play the game already. Just as I neared the heaven, I shrieked with joy that’s just owned by the kids winning the challenge of their opponent. And in the next eleventh second, the shriek of joy turned to a scream of agony. And all I remember after this is the face of my concerned father and mother and the dutiful doctor. The puzzle was on as they were working out to find the mystery of me missing the big thorn fence which had nearly killed me.

Puzzle was solved and mystery revealed. I had Astigmatism. And in one auspicious day of the following month I was provided with my first ‘handle with care’, my second pair of eyes.

And that moment, I was thrilled and excited as I had got a new object to play with and above all, I had something which other classmates of mine will not have. Objects that obviously differentiate me with other classmates clearly establish me as a hero of the class. But one thing which I couldn’t understand was the tears in my parents’ eyes. When I own an object of significance of such magnitude, what is that brings tears to my parents’ eye?

So at the age of eleven, I wore my first spectacles. Coming to the present, i can quickly calculate that I had been wearing spectacles for more than 14 years. Over the period of time, spectacles ceased to be a foreign object to my brain.

And now, I am a software Engineer, working for IBM and a writer writing for my satisfaction and pleasure. Be it for my bread and butter or for my extra pleasure, I depend on my eyes as much as a bird depending on its wings or the fish depending on its gills.

Only dream which I never dared to dream was the dream of me giving treat to my own naked eyes.

And I should tell you that I lived the day when the dream did come true. And this day was brought to me by an unassuming and spotlessly clear doctor, Mrs Sujatha Mohan. of Rajan Eye Clinic, Chennai.

For quiet some time I had been hearing about this Lasik Eye Operation and I also heard that this enables people to get rid of their second eye. Though the end result was very attractive, the doubts and the risks that accompanied them were huge that I still didn’t dream.

Strolling in a dark room, and even more, if it is the first time you are stepping into the dark room, all you require is a light to find your way out. Dr. Sujatha Mohan’s words were the light that I desperately wanted, as I wanted to find my way out of the dark room. I WANTED TO GET RID OF MY SPECTACLES, THE SECOND PAIR OF EYES, AND GIVE FREEDOM TO MY OWN EYES.

Two sessions with the doc, one during the initial check-up and the other during the D – Day, the day when the operation was scheduled, saw me through to the operating bed.

Four people surrounding me, I had my head inside the belly of a strange machine. My eyes directly were staring at a green light emanating from no where. The World at that moment for me was just me and a voice, the Voice of the doctor. The voice instructed me to relax and be calm and just keep staring at the green light.

And from that time onwards till the time I was released from the belly of the strange machine, Green light was the only hope of survival. It was just the every relation that you can think of and I had fallen in love with that green light. I couldn’t stop myself gazing that green light.

I never believed miracles but this was a technical miracle. Painless, smooth and one splendid experience, It was all just for half an hour. I would rate this as the most important half an hour of my life and this is beyond doubts.

I never thought that I would ever get free from the shackles of the spectacles. I never thought that I would be able to feel the breeze hitting my eyes that which see it. I never thought that I would be able to see my own World with my own Naked Eyes. But now, I do think that I have got a new confidence as far as my eyes are concerned and would urge everyone I see, wearing spectacles, to free their eyes from the shackles of the spectacles.

And now, I again saw tears in my parent’s eyes but this time I knew the reason for those tears.

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Email Sudaman: sudamantm@in.ibm.com

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