My very first Contacts

In school days, I was totally taken by this famous blind belief that wearing spectacles make one look scholar, irrespective of marks he/ she gets. So here was I praying to god every single day that I be blessed with bad eyes and get my wish fulfilled. It seems, god finally got bored of my incessant pleas, and thus within a year, I had the Dexter look.

Only when I got into college did I realise how uncool it is for a girl to be four eyed. And soon, I started begging for a pair of contact lenses.... not to god this time, to amma, only to be riff-raffed at the very first request. 'First you say its 'in', then you say its 'out' ... I know you well.' was her verdict. And with that; was the end of all probable further deliberations.

Three years later, Bausch & Lomb had this free '15 days lens' trial in college.

'Pallavi, look... 15 days disposable lens wala FREE trial. I'll go?? You'll come with me?'

And the dear friend that she is since college did not say no to me. And in we went into the grand hall where there were batteries like me trying out this new accessory for their eyes.

As soon as it was my turn, I handed over my spectacles for checking the number. And I was called. This was "THE MOMENT'.

I looked at Pallavi. 'You will be staying with me no?' I asked sounding like a patient who's about to undergo Bypass surgery and kidney transplant at the same time.

The volunteer smiled up at me and all I could manage was something between a smile and a grimace.

'Ready?' she asked.

'yes' and I took a deep breathe.

The operation began. She was trying to keep my eye open and insert the lens, just as a mother would try pouring the bitter medicine down her kid's throat. But the expert that she was.....!
After floods of tears and plenty of 'wait...wait...waiiiiiit's, I was yelling 'owww this pains... its stinging... it hurts... its pricking.... it burns...' I still wonder if it was genuine, or I wanted to be a bollywood actress.

'First time, this happens.. now open your eyes'

'You mean, Slowly?'

'Anyhow you want to, lady'

Now this was real, Nirupa Roy film, climax scene. I opened my eyes slowly, and I was screaming once again.

' I can seeeee, Pallavi.... I can see... this is amazing...WOW.....THIS IS BRILLIA....'

'Now, we'll remove it' she, rudely, cut me off short.

'Wha?! Why?!.. I thought you give them to us.'

'Y E S, but we are also supposed to show you how to get them out. You possibly don't think you'll sleep with your lenses on, do you?' stressing on each word, she retorted with visible irritation.

'ohh, sure.. sorry.' I apologized.

Then after 2 minutes break where we waited for my eyes to stop tearing, she said 'Now you try to put them on, yourself.'

My hands shook, I missed my eyes for a couple of times and then finally I shook with laughter.

'Why are you laughing?' she was amused to see tears and peels of laughter both coming from me.

'I keep missing... this way I'll never be able to use lenses' I managed to say in between.

'Keep trying.... you'll get there eventually' she stated with stark seriousness. She didn't get the joke, I guess.

After what seemed like ages, I succeeded.

'Now take it out. Pinch your eye.' this was an order. She'd had enough of me already.

'Pinch-my-eye?? I can't pinch my eyes. How can I pinch my eyes??'

She sighed. Another why-me? evidence.

'Alright, I'll try'

She sighed again and this time it was louder. This offended me... I agree, offence got to me a bit late. Yet again I succeeded.

'Can I put it again?' I asked, hoping she wouldn't sigh once more.

'Ya sure. If you want to.' she replied totally ripped of energy AND she did NOT sigh.

This time the process was faster, and I decided I'd had enough of this volunteer, so I said 'Can I leave?'

'Of course' she would have even added 'with pleasure. And do me a favor, Do Not come back again' if not for the immense drain of energy. All this while, do not forget, Pallavi was the silent, bemused spectator.

Looking back at it all, I feel I owe this volunteer a lot. Dear Girl, wherever you are; First, a magnanimous SORRY, for making you go through all this. But you see, it was the question of my precious eyes. Second, THANK YOU, for since then I have been using contact lenses. Bausch & Lomb wala. ;)

Never Meant to be Practical!

Mithun's latest post gave my memory a kick and Voila! I have a post ready.

When I say "practical", I mean my school and college practicals, that I have consistently screwed up, mostly to my benefit.

Archimedes Principal : Class V, Practical exam (finals). *Please go to the site, not to read but to see Archimedes where he'd had this lightbulb-in-the-brain moment. He gives complex to SRK.*

I measured the volume of the cube and then suspended it into the water. Naturally, the water was displaced and I collected it into the beaker. Since "the volume of the immersed object will be exactly equal to the volume of the displaced fluid", it should have been equal. But this was MY experiment and the water displaced was more than the cube's volume. APPLAUSE!

For the fear of flunking my practs, I was pouring the water back into the vessel when the teacher came and stood near me to test my exp. To cut the long story short, she measured the cube *my calculations were correct* and she measured the water in the beaker *after I had managed to pour back a little bit of it in order to redo*, that surprisingly, equalled the volume as the cube. She said "good, very good" and till date I'm speechless.

Reflection of light experiment : Class VII

It was definitely a task to look into the mirror to and place pins in such a way that when you look at it from an angle, it looks like one single straight line.

I was *and am continually so* terribly lazy that I marked both the sides by taking proper angles on the protractor and drew a faint line. Later pinned the pins onto the line, not without forgetting to rub my drawn line and not without making stray pin marks here and there to make believe the teacher my efforts. *Mukta, go do chugli =))*

I thought 10th class was the end of all practicals. I thought wrong. They followed me till the end of my college.

Business Communication Viva : S.Y.B.com, Finals

My dad had gifted me my first ever cell in S.Y B.Com and I was proud to show it off. Mine was the only colour phone among friends. My pride didn't stop me from taking cell with me during the viva.

It was finally my turn for the oral and my cell sang just when I was about to sit! And I faced the music from the prof. "Don't you know you are not allowed to take cell phones with you during practical exams??" That shook my every bit of confidence that I'd had in me for the orals. Though it was soon restored. Prof asked me " what are the modern forms of communications? Give me examples"

Costing, Taxation & Law Practice : S.Y.B.Com, Finals

Bhonde Sir, the one who was considered the terror of B.M.C.C. and whose name alone made one tour the universe in 5 seconds flat, was my professor and also my viva internal prof. The first question he asked me was "Why did you take CTLP for specialization? Why not Busi. Admin.?
Me : *already so nervous that my body was even scared to tremble* Huh??!
Sir : What huh? Why did you take CTLP?
Me : uhhh... *not sure if he wanted an honest one, or the one that would please him* Sir, frankly because I did not want to do an entire theory subject...
(I blurted my honesty out and was quick to pray that I would not have offended him by not buttering him like others did)
Bhonde sir : *smiled and turned towards external prof* She's one of my regular students and very sincere.
.... and he let me off, not a single question about CTLP and I got 19/20 for that viva.

and there are 2-3 more where I misunderstood the profs' questions and provided goofy answers much to the examiners' surprise and amusement. But I stop here, fingers aching.