“Do you feel inferior in any way Supri?” Appa would ask me after every visit to the ophthalmologist. “Of course not Appa!” My eye power had started at a measly -0.5 when I was eight and slowly ballooned to -9.5 in my left eye, and -8 in my right eye by the time I was twenty-two, much to Amma’s dismay. “It’s all your fault Dev,” Amma would say to Appa, angry with the genes that had so perfectly aligned our refractive errors. This would usually be followed by my “I am a POWERful woman” quip which annoyed her no end. Appa would stand behind my chair during every appointment, squint at the alphabets on the eye chart and announce triumphantly his power hadn’t changed a bit.
He never ever folded his glasses “to maximise the lifetime of the hinges Supri”. Despite the tender ministrations, the stem of his glasses broke early one morning. He taped it back and refused to buy a new pair. “Why waste money when my power hasn’t changed in over two decades”.
When my parents went to “see” the man I was going to marry, the first thing Appa did was point to his old-fashioned, thick, soda- buddi glasses and declare to all company present that his beloved daughter was as myopic as he was! If this was a test, my husband passed with flying colours, he couldn’t have possibly refused to marry me without seeming terribly shallow! :-)
The glasses defined Appa- the intellectual Physics professor, the book lover, the indulgent father who thought no end of his children, the loving spouse. You could barely make out the colour of his eyes hidden behind the concentric swirls of the thick lenses. Naturally I refused to wear anything that made me look like that! Thank goodness for high quality lenses (I can’t even tell you how much I pay for my glasses!) and contact lenses (which I am beginning to dislike more and more these days).
They caressed his nose while he graded countless physics papers, pored over textbooks preparing class notes, read, and reread all his favourite novels. When presbyopia struck, he pushed the glasses up on his forehead to read fine print. Bifocal or progressive lenses? Pfft! This from a man whose PhD was in optics and laser spectroscopy!
Appa looked so vulnerable without his glasses. The time lag between his bare eyed and bespectacled self probably never exceeded 10 seconds when he was awake. I know because it is next to impossible to exist in that nebulous, and unfocussed zone without feeling utterly insecure.
His glasses made the round trip with him: Chennai to Chennai via universities in Norway, Germany, Canada, and the UK. They didn’t accompany him to the other world though. You don’t cremate glasses do you?
Thank you
, and for giving me the prompt I needed.
I remember reading this during our writing circle and feeling emotional! Revisited that space again :)
And you are back!!!! Supriya it is always so so nice to read you. 🤩