"My Eyes Ya"

One of my friends used to say that. She was the classic "Soda Buddi" Of course this was the nineties so those of us that had glasses had giant ones. She had giant glasses which were also of gargantuan thickness. It was amazing for me to look through them. Me, who had perfect vision (oh how I hated that!).

You look at all the IIT boys photos in the newspaper and you imagine the class to be homogeneously filled with reed-thin geeky boys wearing large maroon glasses. And possibly, white sneakers with dress pants tailored at neighbouring tailor, "EverStyle Tailors", perhaps.

This friend of mine and I, we were not that boy. She is a super beautiful girl who clobbered the JEE and then spent her four years hiding behind those glasses, lying down in her corner hostel room, with her ear stuck to a radio playing Vividh Bharathi. She will come down and kick my ass if I tell any more things about her because "Preeti don't you dare make up stories about me when we leave hostel" is what her parting words were, in 1995.

I am not that boy either. I desperately wanted to wear glasses, thought I would look 'cool' I had no problems at all with my eyes till some day another not-typical-IITian-boy classmate of mine wagged a welding torch in my general direction, and I now have a eclipse-scar-of-sorts in my left eye. Of course mommyhood brought with it two continuous years of headaches and I wear glasses since then.

Yesterday we were at this thread ceremony. I wanted to go. The kid is the child of my husband's cousin. She is a dear girl who is always smiling and pleasant and we have of course been thrown together a lot in the past fifteen years that I have known her. And the "threadee" is a car-crazy, near-teenaged boy who apparently asked my father in law yesterday "How is the ride" about our beamer.

So I climbed into Sari and proceeded there. I was really bored out of my mind though because I felt a bit asocial, with the smoke, and the naadaswaram, and that shoulders and back workout early am, and waking up super early am, and general blah-ness. We stuck to it though I admit that I spent some time solving The Hindu crossword clutching a bit of yellow rice in my hand, which I had forgotten to throw at the boy.

I didn't wear my glasses the entire time. Don't know why. Am just bored of them, I guess. I am not wearing them now, either. So the smoke got into my eyes big time. Burned like crazy. We returned home and changed and the child & I went to my (newly air conditioned) office. The office smelled dusty and my nose felt blocky.

We came home and they watched the match while I read and we ate and my eyes still hurting, I went to bed. Woke up super early for swim (child), run (me), and curl up and go back to sleep (husband). I didn't much open my eyes during my run because its the same old, familiar, IIT route. Pfft.

I am remembering my beautiful empress of a friend from college (lasik means she cannot hide behind her glasses anymore, so there). I guess her eyes must have burned. With a combination of academics-induced lethargy, poor sleep quality, and Chennai heat-related blah-ness. "My Eyes Ya" they burn. Still.