“I regretfully have to say that you have reached that point that you can’t do without spectacles or a laser operation.”
It was a verdict given by the ophthalmologist.
Good, that I didn’t have enough money for laser operation, because that horn rimmed glasses saves my ass most of the time.
**********************
“A REVOLUTION IN THE ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY.” Daily news
“IT INDEED IS THE ULTIMATE SEDUCTION. YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO RESIST IT.” Globe
“IF YOU DON’T HAVE IT, PUH, TOUGH LUCK.” Times of India
***********************
“Okay boys and gals, we have important announcement to make. I hereby make a predicament that all your video games and computer games will be made obsolete, there is no need for interactive community sites, as they are not so interactive in a way they should be. I have this vision, and this one I can share it.” Said the so alleged Rocket Singh, who also called himself the sales man of the year. He certainly looked like a salesman, but he was neither a Singh nor did have booster thrust speech, he was a plain little man who was droning on and on about a technology that was never called forward and it was already starting to agitate the few recess-conscious students.
They all began to clap; this was an indication to that little man to get lost. He did not. It started with murmur, and then it was an outright roar.
“Half of the recess is about to get over.” One of them cried in the midst of the speech about the portal to the next universe that did not seemed to be opening anytime soon. I was alone, sitting on the last bench as usual, the guy with specs. I never knew that spectacles were as harmful and injurious as tobacco, the way they were looking at me. Okay I didn’t underwent a laser operation, but its no big deal. I haven’t got no money. Imagine a boy who along with his mother lived on Rs. 10,000 per annum of the scholarship amount he had received; imagine he gets a rude college medical examiner, who fails him in the physical just because he has a habit of crashing every other pole existing in this universe. You have got a snotty guy, who can’t control his daily spurts you are okay with that, you have got an awfully bad smelling bad mouthed guy and you can handle that. But what you can’t handle is a soft spoken but sometimes dumb headed boy just because he had got specs.
Then the guy opened the Pandora’s Box. A faint glimmer of green light emerged from that yellow LCD TV like box. They seemed to view it with open eye wonder. Welcome to the virtual world, they seemed gaga about it; so much as they weren’t on Lady who calls herself Gaga. All I could see was that lights were reaching out to each and every horse shitted guy and high headed gals. It pricked the eyes, quivered the retina, and send extremely high voltage signal pulsing through brain. And the waves seemed terribly frustrated as they could not find a proper entrance in my eyes, I was dejected, it had took years for the inferiority complex to get accumulated, it won’t leave the grasp so soon, just because you have seen two three shows of how to stay always positive in the neighbour’s tube. I took off my specs, I could see that the virtual world was reaching out to me, but it was extremely hazy. I could not make out a bird from a monkey. It was a time I decided that a low birthed guy like me does not deserve the visual that all seemed to enjoy, it was just not for me.
They all jeered at me afterwards when I told them I couldn’t see a thing. They took it to another disadvantage of wearing specs.
Then it struck me that I felt a concurrence in this entire coincidence. You have created a great visual technology that liberates your senses to extreme joy, or so I am told, at the same time the increasing cheapness and rigid marketing of the laser operation and people’s sudden vehemence against specs and lenses. I definitely felt at that time that it was a gigantic conspiracy, a conspiracy against me.
*******************
Vivek was something of the only friend I had, he had no other friend, he had scars all on his face, but we had good time together. Well he was in civil while I was in chemical, not much time for a good get together, but still a good friend. That Monday morning I discovered through interaction with real life people that they don’t need friends anymore.
He was standing at the corner of the main building; mostly he does so because it gives him a good angle to observe all the high headed gals, he was a typical inferiority complex guy. He firmly believed that he should wear a mask. But that day he seemed to be hounded up by all the famous guys. And that could happen only when you have gf who can be ogled at or you had a new gadget. And my friend seemed to have that new gadget. It had the new gadget fitted in it. I sensed that I was not needed there anymore. I turned back.
It was then that I got a perfect definition of friend and they simply happened to be the resistance to tough time. A friend helps in forgetting pain; the students were finding resources better than friends to give a tough fight to face the world. But of course after that gadget their world was non existent.
*********************
It was a tremendously tiring evening. It was most for me as I was not gadget aided. Education had been so swiftly replaced by that vision enhancer; I wondered why computer never had that effect. The professor was somewhere in Sydney, a long way off, and his holographic image that the students seemed to see was covering the whole screen that was for me. He went inside that boiler, and was explaining every nut and bolt, by going deeper and deeper inside the machine and it seemed that the other students felt that they were inside that boiler, observing its heat. But for me as the three dimensional overlapped on two dimensions and anyways it was not a 3-d technology the way I had seen it, it was something different than your normal I-max theatre that disallows spectacled boys to enjoy its wonder.
I decided that I don’t want a laser operation. I could easily see what I wanted to. I could see that the so called gadgets were sucking everyone’s aura, as they slowly became sullen and shallow. I rejected every offer they made of getting my eyes back to normal.
********************
“Pss.”
Someone seemed to be calling me. It was from a green smudge of plants and banyan trees. I turned back.
“I don’t think that it would be a good idea to go back to class to attend anymore lectures.”
That voice shouted once again.
“I have to pass the exams.”
“I think you know a better way to do that.”
I completely stopped in the track. He was calling from an old creaking place. It was behind the older Nescafe. No one used this block anymore. It was fantasized to be haunted, of course in virtual world fantasies tend to come true. But how the hell could I forget that place. It was a section highly ridiculed, it called worst jeers when any one could be seen loitering around its precincts. It was the old T.K. Gajjar library. The voice seemed to be coming directly from the broken window. I looked around, no one was seeing. That does not mean no one was seen by me. I simply could see them everywhere but they seemed awfully busy in the world that they have created for themselves. Now-a-days even the tribal doing his jungle dance would go unnoticed.
I decided to take my chances. I went towards the library. I could see that it was covered in extreme darkness even in the broad daylight. My steps crunched as I moved towards it, it was covered with dead leaves and the leftovers.
Some source of light could be observed nearby; it seemed to be coming from the cloak room. The cloak room was opposite in direction then the library. A gray figure can be made out hooded in the lamp’s darkness. It was sheer surprise to see that old bag keeper, sitting on that couch.
“H…How come you…”
“Well they definitely don’t pay me but I have stayed here my whole life, it is the only place which I can call my official workplace, and I respect the letters and the men who write them.” He said solemnly, as he took my bag and placed into an almost empty rack. I was even surprised that someone ever visited the library.
I went out of the cloak room, feeling terribly happy that the library was still operational. I began to climb the stairs. No sooner did I do that that I was surrounded.
I panicked. I felt that it was another of their stupid jokes. But out of blue a heavy, dusty book was placed in front of me.
“You will have to take an oath.”
“What the hell?”
“If you want to save your life do as I say.” The same voice said.
“Promise on this book of Arthur Beiser of Advanced Physics that you would never submit to the temptation of that vile instrument that makes robotans and mad men out of human beings.”
I did not comprehend what was going on; still I placed my hand on the book.
“I promise.”
The way cleared. An oil lamp was burning; a lotus was placed beneath the candle.
“It’s the…”
“…college symbol.” The boy besides me completed.
“Let knowledge spread throughout.” I whispered. I noticed another thing, they all wore specs.
I even noticed a third thing; they were ready for the war.
Alienman 