A post from Colin McQueen recently made me relive my own experiences with eye tests. While most of the semantics matched to the point of continuous eye-roll, some points need further dissection.
When I went for my first eye test because of continuous headache on a cold winter day, I went alone, having no prior knowledge of the process. It was the only eye hospital in the city at the time. Since it was a couple of kilometers from my home, I rode my scooter to the venue and reached around 2 pm.
As everyone sat there waiting for the specialist to see us, someone came around and poured a semi-liquid in our eyes. Assuming it was an eye-drop of some kind, I didn’t ask questions. Instantly, everything went dark. I called out and was answered that it is a cleaning agent for our eyes. Who answered me–I am not sure. For all I know, it could be the janitor who was cleaning close by, .
After that, all I could see was light and darkness.
I could hear that people were being called by the appointment number but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what mine was. So, after waiting for the person right before me to move out of his seat, I moved on the next call, assuming we were sitting as per the number. Of course, I was sent back with a reminder to return on my turn. Both ways, I had trodden over half the competition, sure that it will make them call me next. But people were made of sturdier stuff back then.
After the third failed attempt to kill people on my way (After the first time, I couldn’t find toes to trod on. I think they had pulled their feet up on their seats as soon as I rose), I asked the “caller” to read my token and let me know my number. He grumbled about illiteracy in India and told my number in Hindi. I told him he will have repeat that in English because I didn’t know Hindi numbers that well. He then grumbled about people not taking pride in their mother tongue and repeated in English. I wondered if he looked like Amrish Puri–in that moment of complete helplessness and his absolute apathy, he sure sounded like him.
After what felt like an eternity (I couldn’t check my watch for the loss of sight and time always stretches out while you are kept in the dark), my number was called and my fellow patients sighed in relief as I stumbled across the hall to the adjoining room, making a point to step on the “caller’s” feet on my way.
There was a doctor, I think. I am not sure how he looked considering all I could see was light and darkness. I hope he looked like Brad Pitt but couldn’t tell him from Darth Vader at the moment. I also couldn’t tell him from Julia Roberts, but his voice seemed male, so I am assuming the gender here. I was told to sit on a high stool. I had to ask where it was.
He gave me some directions that I felt through my fingers and reached the seat. He asked me what was wrong with my eyesight. “Well, I can’t see anything except light and darkness.”
“And how long has it been?”
“Not sure. Half an hour? As soon as I came to the hospital and they poured something in it…”
“No, I mean, what was wrong before you came to hospital?”
“My scooter wouldn’t start in the morning. And I can’t use the kickstart–it hurts my leg, so I had to call the neighbour since dad was out…”
” No, I mean what’s wrong with your eyes?”
“You tell me–you are the doctor.”
He sighed, “Why did you come to hospital in the first place? And I am not the doctor. I am an assistant.”
“Oh! Sorry. I constantly have headache.”
“Can you please read at the alphabets on the board?”
“Where is the board?”
“In your front.”
“I don’t think I can.”
He got up and did something to the board. The fact that I could see him get up and reach the board made me happy–I could see a little further away. Though I still couldn’t tell if he was tall or short–he was a blur moving towards another brighter blur.
“Can you read the Akshar (Hindi alphabets) on the board?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
He sighed and mumbled something about not going by the looks.
He then told me put my chin on something. I was too short, so he readjusted and told me to look straight ahead without blinking. I realised that some of my vision had returned and I could see objects close to my nose–something that looked like high-tech binoculars. His face was six inches from mine behind these binoculars.
I wondered if his vision was okay, considering he needed such a contraption to look at me…
Before I could try to understand how he actually looked like, he told me to concentrate on the red dot–but I like green better and there was a green dot too. So, I had a hard time looking at the red dot while ignoring green, and at the same time not letting it slide out of focus completely (his orders). Obviously, he had to take that reading several times until I could feel his patience waning. He finally told me he will flash a light and not to blink–but of course I blinked.
It seemed like he was beyond caring now and sent me to the next room with a slip.
As I stumbled into the next room, a pot-bellied doctor awaited me with a smile that told me he was ready to pack up. That I could make out his smile and pot-belly clearly gave me the confidence that the damage to my eyesight wasn’t permanent. As he looked at my readings from the previous room, he asked me to tell him what I see on the board. Again.
The flash in the eye seemed to have done the trick though. I could actually see everything on the board, though the colours felt a little blurry and whitish on the ends, and what I saw made me frown–it showed no letters but circles with random open ends meant for illiterate people who could read neither English nor Hindi.
I guess the slip did contain the part about my not being “able to read” the board. Sigh! I “read” the last line for him. He smiled and told me I should try to worry less and put less pressure on my brain, which seemed to be causing the headaches and dismissed me.
As I reached the main door of the hospital, the “caller” asked, “Hey, where is your attendant? Are you alone?”
Now he notices! “Yeah, I drove myself in.”
“I think you should wait a couple of hours before leaving. The sun’s glare is blinding outside.”
I had had enough of him by now. I couldn’t allow someone who sounded like the epic villain to stand between me and my freedom, “I can see now. I’ll be fine.” And I walked into the shaded parking and rode my scooter out in the sun. And immediately cursed myself for being short with the “caller”.
I couldn’t go back in while also I couldn’t see anything in front. The sun’s glare was truly blinding, thanks to the eye-cleaner. My home was on the way where sun would continuously be in my eyes. But I couldn’t stay put because my mom would worry. I had no way to inform her–mobile phones were too expensive and I didn’t carry one. There was no phone booth around.
I flinched at every bump of the way, praying it wasn’t a living being. If they were, well, they never called the police on me. I wondered how much of the world’s population problem they had solved using this formula.
How did your first eye-test go?
