When I went abroad for the first time, I just could not sleep on the very first night. I was wondering why I couldn’t sleep. It was a very spacious room for one person. It had everything you’d ask for. It had air conditioners, state of the art television, dvd players, refrigerators etc. It had everything, but one. A fan. A ceiling fan. That’s when I realised that I can’t sleep without a ceiling fan. I’ve got used to the rhythmic sound of the ceiling fan so much that the silence in that hotel room was disturbing. The silence was even eerie.

It didn’t take me too much time to realise that I can’t sleep in utter silence. Some of us are not used to silence. I was not. I’ve grown up in noisy neighbourhoods. Even at home, you always hear a voice. Silence is not really experienced. Silence is like truth. Too much of it is really uncomfortable. I realised that I needed some noise around me to sleep peacefully. Quite an irony but that was the case. So, I switched on the television and left it on a music channel at reasonable volume for a midnight. I think I was then asleep in about 10 minutes.

Even at home, we’ve got air conditioners in every living space but the fans are a must in the nights. The fans are supposed to run all day and night while air conditioners will be on and off. I’m writing this today because something happened yesterday too. I was putting my daughter to sleep in the night. My wife was busy with some work in the kitchen. While my daughter was falling asleep, I was suddenly thinking ‘why am I feeling like I’m a hotel room?’. The air-conditioner was running and the fan was off. That was it. So it was not so much about the ceiling fan. It’s about the sound of it. The fact that the fan does not leave me alone. It gives my mind some company with its noise.

Going back to the point about utter silence, how often have we got to experience utter silence? There is always some noise or sound or music that always surrounds us wherever we are. Those to some extent keep the mind busy. It helps the mind not to think anything in depth. While we are thinking about what to do in office today, we also hear the blaring horns of the truck, the radio music from the tea shop, the noise that children make etc. As we hear and register them, subconsciously we they keep our mind busy. Think for a moment that there is absolute silence around you. Or you have the remote for this whole world and you hit the mute button. In silence, 24 hours will be like 48 hours. I can’t explain you but I’m sure you can feel it. In silence, you tend to think a lot and then stop thinking altogether. It is the stage where we think a lot that we would normally find it difficult to cross.

Silence can be of many types – silence of the external world, your own outer silence and your inner silence. Contrary to public perception, these are not really mutually exclusive. Some minds can achieve inner silence even while the whole world is being bombed. For the untrained minds, it has to be a gradual process. That’s why you’re told to find a calm place (silence of the external world), and then sit quietly in a posture (your outer silence), and let your mind wander and finally stop thinking (your inner silence).

Since the world does not have a remote control, the idea of muting the world is purely imaginary. Believe me, you can mute the world as well. Because it is your ear that hears all the noise. If you choose not to hear, you don’t hear anything and you’d have muted the world. Forget muting the world, the idea of muting yourself is certainly possible. In Hinduism we have this ‘mouna vratham’ which is a ritual of silence. The less we speak the more we understand the importance of silence and also that of words. We don’t have go looking for moments of silence. But when they present themselves, we don’t have to run away from them, like I did in those abroad nights or yesterday night.

Our problem may be very simple in life; we find that we must keep doing, thinking, going, listening, running, talking or else what shall we be? We love to be filled with noise, images, words, thoughts, memories, fantasies, sensations, people, pleasures and good feelings. When these things are not, we feel bored, alone, scared and quite possibly angry and confused. The brain needs input almost continuously.

Isn’t it the case? We need to keep the mind filled with nonsense. If we don’t, the mind will go looking for the truth. And we don’t want that, do we?

I was poor at science subjects. I still am. Be it physics, chemistry or biology. I was very poor. I never understood any of those theorems and formulae. Even some of the very basic things are still a problem for me. Only physics was slightly better because I found it a bit interesting and practical. Overall, science subjects were very alien to me. As far as I was concerned, “if it moves it’s biology, if it stinks it’s chemistry and if it doesn’t work, it’s physics”.

My disconnect with science subjects never was a major hindrance for me academically speaking. I was still scoring decent 70s and 80s which did not threaten me too much. As you figured out, I wasn’t a dumb student. I was a ‘tiger’ in Mathematics. I was one of the brightest kids but with an evident weakness in science subjects. Why did I not get along with science subjects then?

When I joined high school (public school), I happened to get a lousy science teacher. But then that was the time the school got serious with the curriculum, exams, competition and all that. Primary school was just time pass. High school gave me goosebumps. And this science teacher was a waste of space and time. That early in high school, my parents didn’t think I need to be put in private classes. There are some teachers who teach in school like they’ve not been paid their salaries for years and when it comes to their private classes they treat you like you’re their adopted sons.

This man in the frame wasn’t even that. He simply sucked. I think he would have sucked even at watching movies, walking the dog, reading newspapers, combing his hair, buying his clothes – he’d have sucked at everything. I don’t know how the rest of the students managed. I generally had to understand in order to appreciate anything. I can still pass your exams but I wouldn’t appreciate the concepts. The only positive I saw was that he is not going to be my science teacher next year too. Our school would keep rotating teachers every year.

I moved to the seventh standard. Bingo. You’re right. Same man. Same agony. I was screaming ‘I’m wasting my time with you’. You must know what he actually does in the class. He is a very calm and quiet man. He is a very nice man all right, it’s just that he was just incompetent or indifferent. He would walk in quietly. He would take his chair. He would call one of the students near him and ask him to read aloud say, chapter 4. The boy generally happens to be the typical teachers’ pet who is always the public enemy. So he reads it aloud while we all listen to him reading the paragraphs of text. Practically no value add at all. While the boy reads, the teacher would not explain anything. He’d be vigilantly watching us like we were the pakistani soldiers across the line of control.

There was one time when he crossed his limits and gave a memorable explanation. I remember that even after 15 years. One day this public enemy was reading a chapter from biology. As always, he was reading at million words per minute. Suddenly the teacher interrupted. “Stop. Single cell is one cell. Now continue.” We were flabbergasted. This was fucking outrageous. What was he thinking? Jumping in as if we did not know what “single cell” meant and as if that was only thing we did not understand in that diarrhoea of biological words. He was breaking his own records. Luckily, we were moving on to the eighth standard. I knew that no teacher has taught the same class for three years in a row.

Did I say he was breaking his own records? Third freaking year in succession! I thought somebody hired him just to screw my education. I was very good in all other subjects. Only science was going from bad to worse. In fact, I had lost hopes. I lost all my interest in understanding the concepts. I was just trying to avoid it as much as possible. I started ignoring science. The neglect even turned into hatred and aversion. I had also tried to understand stuff myself with the textbooks and invariably ended up playing cricket.

The guys from the other sections of my class had very good science teachers all along. So those guys were pretty good in science. They were there to remind me how much I sucked at concepts of science. In the ninth and tenth standards, our section got some decent teachers but by that the damage was done. With a terribly poor foundation, the decent teachers could only paper the cracks. The pity is that, for some reason, I always thought I could have done well in Science and related subjects, if I had got the right education. I think I had the aptitude for that.

In the tenth exams, I got a respectable 81% as the overall percentage with 71% in science. In our school terms, it was a very good score. I had to then decide which group I was going to take in higher secondary – science with biology (yuck), science with computer science (grrr), commerce with economics (yawn) and commerce with computer science (wow).

There was this interview with the principal where my group will be determined. Apparently, there was a mad rush for science groups. There was a class system in groups too. The general perception was, if you scored low or if you’re dumb or both, you’d be assigned commerce group. Add to that, in higher secondary, the science group classes were moved to the brand new building in the school campus. So, commerce groups in the rotten old place. Science groups in the brand new building. They referred themselves as the ‘first group’ and that they are in the ‘new building’. Annoying.

D-day. My father accompanied me to the interview with the principal. We were waiting outside. The speed in which the queue moved said there is no discussion happening inside. You’re being stamped ’science’ or ‘commerce’ based on your marks, potential and conduct. I had told my father that I’m opting for commerce with computer science. He had said ‘you decide’.

Our turn. We went in. After meet and greet, the prinicpal looked at the mark sheet and asked my father ‘with biology or computer science’. Knowing that my fate was in my hands, I swiftly reacted, “commerce with computer science”. He looked a bit pizzled. “You’ve got very good marks, you can get into the science groups easily”. I said, “No sir, I want commerce with computer science only”, with a strong tone of determination and insistence. He didn’t try to persuade further. He obliged. I was granted what I wanted. In the snap of a finger, I was free from protons, neutrons, electrons, potassium chlorides, inorganic compounds, molecular models, plasma membranes and the other gangsters.

I’m a qualified chartered accountant today. Thanks goes to that single-celled teacher who managed to keep me out of the evils of science subjects. It’s always comes in a package, doesn’t it? Every good might have a bad and every bad does have a good too!

A long bike-travel is something no one appreciates except the ones who travel. Sometime during my college days, when my cousin and I decided to go to our friend’s place in Cuddalore (30km from Pondicherry), I don’t think anyone appreciated – the family, friends, girlfriends – no one. There were words of caution from everyone, which was useful but no one said ‘Go on. Enjoy. Have fun’. We were warned of the speeding heavy vehicles, crossing cattle, possible fatigue, checking brakes/petrol/air, having to call etc but hardly anyone said ‘you’ll love it’.

You drive a car and you ride a bike. To say that ‘I ride a bike or he rode a bike’ does not come naturally to me. So I might just use ride and drive interchangeably. So, wherever I say drive I mean taking control of the operation of the vehicle

I don’t even remember now what we had told our families about our biking to Cuddalore. Probably, I’d have told my parents that I’d only be a pillion rider and my cousin would have said something in those lines at his place. My parents very reluctantly okayed the idea purely because they know I’ll somehow find my way. It wasn’t actually an ‘okay’ as such. It was more of ‘I advise you not to go. It’s upto you’. Of course we had got dozens of advices about this trip and we ignored some of them, including that of my parents. The fact that we were a bit careless about the plans and preparations made the trip all the more interesting. Execution as per the plan could give us satisfaction but not excitement. If we were so well planned and executed the plan so well, we may not have quite enjoyed the trip.

Both of us had Hero Honda Splendors but we had tuned them to our styles and methods. Since my cousin is a veteran of many bikes, we thought we’ll use my bike for the trip. We also took just one helmet as we thought that must be just enough. We started at 9 in the morning. To start a 200km bike trip on a March morning was not such a great idea. We agreed to swap the duties every half hour. I say duties because the pillion rider too has responsibilities as much as the rider. As a pillion rider, one needs to help the tilt and balance of the vehicle, put some sense into the rider whenever required, keep an eye on the things a rider may not normally have and such stuff. Naturally, both of us loved bike riding which meant neither stuck to the half hour limit.

Onward journey was all fine except one minor incident. It had to be when I was driving because he drives far better than me. In the ECR, you normally see all these road signs like ‘accident zone’, ‘dangerous curve’ and all that. I had negotiated quite a number of ‘dangerous curves’ only to realise they weren’t so dangerous at all. Then came the next one. I under-estimated that one. Because, my estimate was based literally on the ‘track record’. I was driving at 90km/hour and my cousin too failed in his duties as a pillion rider. I just realised that I was going straight at 90km/hour while the road is curving sharply. Some terrific presence of mind with some lightning quick hand-eye co-ordination averted a big danger. The bike skid outside the road a bit and both of us had controlled the bike with a level head. Near miss.

We reached Cuddalore via Pondicherry. Spent a night at my friends place. The next day we started at 2pm so that we don’t have to do night driving. Anything after 6pm is night driving because of no or poor street lights. We thought we could be in Chennai by 5 pm. At about 4 pm, the bike started stuttering a bit. We stopped and checked the tyres, they were fine. I just casually looked at the petrol indicator. Shock horror. Almost zero petrol. We didn’t know if the stuttering was because of the petrol but that was an unbelievable shock. We had no idea how far the bike can go. There were no petrol pumps in sight. Upon checking we were told there is one 20km forward and 15km backward and such stuff. Nothing was nearby and we ran a risk of pushing the bike for an unknown distance. I’d have agreed for half hour shifts with the first shift starting with my cousin.

The light was fading fast. We were stranded. Signals to stop the cars did not work. Now I know why they didn’t work. I don’t stop the car when a stranger signals in a deserted place. We had to think fast. Time was running out. We thought of taking the risk of using up whatever little petrol left in search of more petrol. We found out that the nearest town is Kalpakkam which was a 15 kms away or something. We went on. We had our action points clear. No over use of the clutch or gears. Maintain consistent speed. And hope. Hope that the bike lasts until Kalpakkam or near any other signs of life.

We reached Kalpakkam finally. It was a beautifully built township. It reminded me of Neyveli. The township exists all because of the Kalpakkam atomic power plant. I could see that it was a modern town. It had nice roads cutting in right angles, no high rise buildings and plenty of green too. We started hunting for petrol in there. We were told that there is only one petrol pump that could be open that Sunday evening and even that one could be closing soon. It almost 6pm then, we had to rush. And ‘the’ petrol bunk was at the far end of the Kalpakkam town. Murphy’s law reminded. The bike started stuttering again. After tremendous efforts, we reached the far end of the town and the petrol pump was there. We did not want a sucker punch, we hoped they were open and they had petrol. Our oil exploration was successful.

By the time we returned to the ECR it was almost 7. We were a bit delayed because bugger had to smoke, we had to have some soft drinks. At 7 in the ECR, you’d see nothing. It almost pitch dark. No streetlights. All that guided us was our bike’s headlights and sometimes the reflectors on the road. Most of the distance, we didn’t know where the road ended. We had no clue if we were in the middle of our side of the road or at the cliff of the road. Because of this we had to drive at a slow speed, not more than 40 kms/hour. Every time a heavy vehicle whizzed past our tiny little bike we had to hold our hearts in our mouths. Every now and then, the high beamed headlights of the oncoming vehicles almost blinded us for a few seconds. We still had to change shifts. We took it as a serious responsibility and we truly had to trust each other, to be particular, he had to trust me which luckily he did.

We have always bitched about city traffic. At that point of time, the moment we entered the city, the city traffic was such a comfort. You felt like you’re in the mainstream. The air of security was back. Traffic jams, horns blaring everywhere, gestures and abuses – man, we’re back, we’re home! It’s a nice trip to recollect. Excitement bordering on a bit of danger. The key things were that we were prepared for the worst case scenario if we didn’t get the petrol and when we had drive in the dark, we were very determined of how to drive and how not to drive.

What am I trying to tell you with this post? Nothing. I just thought I’ll write about this today.

My internet has finally broken down. It’s been three days and there are no signs of a better tomorrow. I badly need internet but there’s little I can do about it. I hate these helpless situations. Is internet not as essential as air, water, xbox, food and shelter? I want to read all those election manifestos to see whose has the promise of uninterrupted high speed internet. What do I do now? I can’t stop browsing and blogging. Of course I have my sweet little Nokia N95 which allows me to use internet but that’s never enough. With almost a sense of self-pity, I decided to do something about this. What are the things I could do?

Call up the service provider: It may not really help me, still I can try. So I tried. The number kept ringing and after half a minute I got to listen to a strange music. Phone ring sounded sweeter. And the music went on. Nothing else happened. I hung up. I tried again. After a couple of rings someone picked up the phone and banged the phone down. Not my idea of customer service. I kept trying. Finally, I got to listen to the live voice of a human being. He informed me that I’ve dialled the wrong number and directed me to another number. I was puzzled. I had dialled the same number I’ve been dialling for internet problems. Anyway, I consoled myself that number might have changed. I called this new number. Guy at the other end told me that I should be calling a different number which happened to be the number I originally called. I gave up.

Try to fix the problem myself: It’s true that you don’t necessarily need to go the himalayas to get a humbling experience. While I was trying to fix this internet problem yesterday, I realised that I had no clue how to fix it. First of all I didn’t know what the problem was. All I could do was to perform certain actions over and over again and hope that I get connected. So I restarted the laptop. Nothing happened. I restarted the modem. Still nothing happened. I disconnected and reconnected the phone cord. No signs of internet life yet. I even allowed windows to diagnose and repair the problem. But it did neither and left me where I was. I didn’t know what else to do. I was helpless. I was wasting time. I gave up.

Go for a workaround: I remember that I can use my Nokia N95 as a modem and have my laptop connect to the internet via my mobile. I needed to have an application installed in the laptop. Fine, I think it must be there, oh wait, didn’t I uninstall it when had nothing else to do? I did. No problem. I can re-install the application with the CD that came with the phone. Problem. I have no clue where that CD is. I have the laptop, the mobile, the chord that connects them both but what I don’t have is the application or the CD. Why can’t I simply magnify what’s on the mobile screen into a laptop screen with the help of bluetooth or rednose? May be I’m a decade ahead of our times, technologically speaking. Basically, I gave up.

Come up with a creative solution: I’ve heard about those. You run around the solution and away from it so much that you get lost and then suddenly the simplest of all workable ideas looks like a creative solution. Here it is. Open notepad. Type the stuff. Save it and send it to the mobile using bluetooth. Save it as a notes item in mobile. The copy all the text. Open mobile browser and go the blog admin area. Create a new post and paste all the text. Publish. Not bad.

Blogging is all about writing and publishing. Bulk of the time normally goes in writing. Publishing is a minute’s work. For writing, all that I need is a computer. Computers don’t think, so I need to have ideas too. To execute the ideas, I need to time to write. Time is not an issue as I constantly withdraw some time from my wife. So, ideas + computer + time = writing. Blogging = writing + publishing. Publishing what’s been written, as I said, is a minute’s work and that can happen from my mobile. I can do this every single day until my internet is fixed. Cool eh? There is a slight downside as well. Because the internet access is a bit restricted, I may not get to read stuff as well. It’s not that I write well-researched articles but it certainly helps. Also rationed internet means no pictures in blogs. I know you like text better than pictures. A word is worth a 1000 pictures. Let’s concentrate on the text, that thing in black and white, that thing the author screams.

I’m struggling for a good last line so let me just say that the normal service resumes

Reading a book is a bit like reading a person. You could have your own methods. You can take less time or more time. Each one of us could have a unquie habit when it comes to reading. Personally, I have never finished reading a book. That’s because I don’t start reading a book as well. I know need to clarify now. Suppose I buy a book today. I’d look at the list of contents. If there is any interesting topic in the list, I’d jump to that for a quick read. I’ll read that bit as much as I can. I also have the habit of browsing the book. When I say browse, I just open the book and start reading the page from a logical start. It could be purely random.

I don’t use bookmarks too. For my method of reading, bookmarks don’t help, striking out might. If I happen to read a part that I have read before, I must be reminded. If I don’t realise that I’ve read that before and it’s interesting, it’s worth reading again. So, no bookmarks.

I never have this habit of reading from chapter one. I don’t know why. I don’t read fiction or biographies, where this may not make sense. Any book where the sequence is very important, this may not work. Luckily, for the kind of books I read, this is an allright habit. Even with the chapters I read, my interest should be sustained by book. I never read all paragraphs painfully because I have to complete reading a chapter. Not all books maintain the tempo and interest throughout the book. That does not really impact me because I don’t mind reading from anywhere. Also, I don’t finish reading books.

In every book, there is an essence right? I try to get that soon enough. You may call it synoptical reading or something like that. As soon as I get that theme and essence, I might even suspend reading the book. The writer of the book had an idea, theme or an essence based on which he has written a book. If I well and truly think I understand that heart and soul of the book, I mentally try to write that book, not all 500 pages. Just try to imagine what I would capture in a book, if I were to write based on that idea or theme, you know what I mean?

It’s all about what you want from reading a book. What’s your objective when you pick up a book? To complete reading a book or reading the book. There is a big difference between wanting to complete reading a book and reading the book. I’m never under this artificial self-created pressure of ‘ah! 200 pages more’ or ‘7th chapter is more interesting but sadly i’m only in the 2nd chapter now’. I never feel that I have to finish reading a book. Sometimes, I even think that I don’t have to read the whole book.

If you ask when will I be done reading the book that you just lent me, my answer would be ‘i don’t know’. I don’t allot daily reading time or anything like that. As you figured out I don’t have a rhythm when it comes to reading. You can call it a purely customised method of sporadic reading, slow reading, comprehensive reading and a bit of skimming. There are books that you can read very quickly. There are books that cannot be skimmed. There could be books with very good views, ideas and thoughts but unnecessarily prolonged to double the size upon the publisher’s request. And there are books where you read a couple of lines and you simply can’t proceed unless you spend time to think about those lines and completely understand the author.

My unrhythmic method of reading gives me the flexibility to read any type of books to my satisfaction. So you must have deduced that I could read many books simultaneously as well. I feel very comfortable with this method. Come to think of it, this is the way I used to read for my chartered accountancy too. Of course, ‘reading’ was one of the components of ’study’, which included few other things like classroom sessions, test papers, examinations, training sessions etc.

There is a quote ‘you read to know that you’re not alone’. Very true for this topic. Read this piece on what American thinker/writer Mortimer Adler says about reading a book:

Adler sets forth his method for reading a wholly or primarily non-fiction book in order to gain understanding. He claims that three distinct approaches, or readings, must all be made in order to get the most possible out of a book, but that performing these three readings does not necessarily mean reading the book three times, as the experienced reader will be able to do all three in the course of reading the book just once. Adler names the readings, “structural”, “interpretative”, and “syntopical”, in that order.

The first reading is concerned with understanding the structure and purpose of the book. It begins with determining the basic topic and type of the book being read, so as to better anticipate the contents and comprehend the book from the very beginning. Adler says that the reader must distinguish between practical and theoretical books, as well as determining the field of study that the book addresses. Further, Adler says that the reader must note any divisions in the book, and that these are not restricted to the divisions laid out in the table of contents. Lastly, the reader must find out what problems the author is trying to solve.

The second reading involves constructing the author’s arguments. This first requires the reader to note and understand any special phrases and terms that the author uses. Once that is done, Adler says that the reader should find and work to understand each proposition that the author advances, as well as the author’s support for those propositions.

In the third and final reading, Adler directs the reader to criticize the book. He claims that now that the reader understands the author’s propositions and arguments, the reader has been elevated to the level of understanding of the book’s author, and is now able (and obligated) to judge the book’s merit and accuracy. Adler advocates judging books based on the soundness of their arguments. Adler says that one may not disagree with an argument unless one can find fault in its reasoning, facts, or premises, though one is free to dislike it in any case.

So how do you read? What are your habits? Tell us about your methods and styles of reading and types of books you read and how your methods and styles helps you to read your types of books.

When you tell someone that you’re a gamer the immediate reaction would be that of surprise and ridicule. People have a perception that games are for young people. Why should a 30-year old be a gamer? Gaming is generally looked down upon because it is considered a waste of time. Some even think it is silly to be playing games beyond your teens. Don’t you have better things to do? Is this the best you can do with your time? May be you should grow up and leave these to the teens? All those types of questions.

I’m an XBOX 360 gamer. I play only football games in the console. For those who don’t know, XBOX 360 is the the set-top-box-like equipment that’s connected to our television. There are various consoles in the market such as XBOX 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii etc. The games such as football, cricket, war simulations etc come in DVDs. You put the game DVD into the XBOX 360 and the game plays on television. How do we control the happenings on the TV screen? We have wireless controllers, unique to XBOX 360, which has various buttons each of which can be configured for each type of game that we play.

I do play for about 6 hours every weekend and sometimes play even in the weekdays. Why am I playing football games on XBOX 360? What do I get out of this? I think it’s amazing fun. It is addictive. It is harmless. How often you get to get hyper-joyed? How often do you get to laugh your lungs out so much that you cry tears? How often do you get to do something that keeps your focus and concentration well above 100%? When was the last time you did something with no sense of time or place? How often do you feel so light and feel completely chilled out? What if you get to experience all this together?

Gaming does require some skill and that skill can be acquired only through practice and concentration. Using the controllers effectively requires some decent hand-eye co-ordination and very quick reflexes. It is this aspect in gaming which keeps you completely attentive and occupied. Generally the mind is busy with too many things. Even when you’re sitting quietly, your mind keeps thinking about various things at different layers. The objective of meditation is to make your mind thoughtless and still. For me, gaming is one step towards that. Laughable? At least, when I’m into gaming there’s only one thing I think about. Mind is clear of all other things. This could be possible with various activities. What makes gaming unique is that the fun is sustainable for hours (so I knocked one comparison with this point) and it requires your involvement and interaction (unlike movies) and in an environment as comfortable as you can make (unlike playing outdoor games under the ‘Chennai sun’).

For me, gaming is not at all a waste of time because I get value for time. Most people who don’t really understand the value of gaming may not have played a game in a console. If you have not tried this yet, don’t miss the next opportunity. Do play any game. See how engrossed you get into that. See how you forget what time of the day it is and where are you’re sitting. See how relieved you feel. See how you explode with joy and laughter which might even be very unlike you.

We are a small group of gamers that play for fun. The objective is strictly fun. We play either against the artificially intelligent computer (aka just ‘computer’) players or against each other among ourselves. In any case, the objective remains to be fun. So we win some, we lose some. When we win, that gives a good feeling. When we lose, invariably there is something to laugh about, with the way we played. Irrespective of the result, we have loads of fun playing that version of indoor football. In every single session there would be spells of laugh riots. Over the last few years, I think we have had over 1000 hours of gaming and possibly more than 2000 football matches.

This one happened the other day. Me and my cousin, as a team, were playing a football game on XBOX 360 against a computer controlled team. We were a goal ahead. Dying moments of the match. We were defending a well orchestrated, devastating attack by the computer. We defended the attack well as my cousin took control of the ball dangerously close to our goal line. Just when I thought he was going to clear the ball to safety, I saw him blasting the ball with unbelievable brutality into our own net for the ‘best’ own goal ever scored. Priceless moment.

I’ve been wearing spectacles since I was 10. To wear spectacles at that young age is one of the most annoying things to happen. That artificial piece of thing on my body did not please me at all. It’s not like your clothes, watches or caps. There’s a dependency on glasses. You depend on them and you need them. Without them I could not be effective or useful. As a young boy suddenly you’ll feel like you’re a bit physically challenged. It’s never that easy to play any of the sports with the glasses on. I now feel that may be that’s why I was hooked on to chess.

I loved playing cricket. I was never a good player though. I was average at best. I had poor technique and footwork in batting. I was a decent bowler I guess. In fielding, I was hopeless. My wearing glasses did nothing to improve my cricketing skills or form. It’s difficult to bowl with your glasses on. You run the risk of ‘elbowing’ the glasses. So, the underarm and overarm versions of bowling suited me well. While batting, I always dreaded the quicker ball and wearing glasses gave me that unexplainable insecurity.

Once I even had my glasses broken by a hard cricket ball travelling at some speed. May be, if I was a better batsman I would not have put all the blame on my glasses. I didn’t have this thing called ‘hand-eye’ co-ordination. It was so bad that it was like the hands and eyes belonged to different people. My fielding was a joke too. My reflexes were never quick enough to get my palms together for a catch. Especially when the ball is skied up, I used to position myself so well in the zone, only to see the ball pop out of my hand. So my positioning was all right, it’s just that my palms were executing the brain’s instructions quick enough. Not many would realise that when a ball is up in the air, the first feeling you get is to protect your glasses from the falling ball. Easier way to achieve it would be to catch the ball but didn’t I tell you my fielding was a joke?

As a young boy, you had to run a lot. Run in the playground, run to school, run to home, run to the shop, boys don’t simply walk. Running with the glasses on can never be as fast as otherwise. Once again, the awareness of the glass reminds you that you can’t run wild. Holding the glasses with one hand and using the other one for aero dynamic movements was not just good enough. The most embarrassing thing was to see your glasses fall off on the road and then with blurred vision looking around all over to see where it fell. So bloody humiliating it is. Used to feel like a sick old man trying to reach out for his walking stick.

Physical difficulties aside, there was something else too. Bespectacled people were everyone’s bunnies. That was a thing to be made fun of. There’s a range of crazy nicknames and funny one-liners to ridicule the ‘glassers’. By the way, there is no single simple word in English for a bespectacled man. And I don’t want to keep writing this word ‘bepsetcalced’ word because the letters for this word are spread across the keyboard increasing the chances for typos by this untrained ‘typer’. So, let me call them ‘glassers’. To be ridiculed for wearing glasses is the worst insult for a glasser. Most annoying and most irritating. I don’t know if this is still the case in schools. There was also this misconception that the glassers would be very studious and teachers’ pets. That did not help us in joining the mischievous mainstream. Not every glasser wore glasses because they were reading every book published. I used to sit very close to the television and I managed to do this so effectively that I had to enter the glasshood as early as 10 years of age.

In college days, glasses posed me a different problem. I couldn’t wear sun glasses. Goddammit! I was always crazy about sun glasses and I thought I’d look good with sun glasses on. But I could never wear them. The sad part is even if I were to try sun glasses, I wouldn’t know how I look. I’ll hear my friends saying that it’s good and all but I could only believe them. The best I could do was to get myself photographed with sun glasses on. Then I started believing the results of some research that said sun glasses are bad for health.

The glasses have become almost a part of my body now. It’s literally true because the power of my glasses have grown with me. I started with a minus 2.5 and right now my left eye is minus 5.5 and right eye is minus 6.5. Mathematically speaking, the power has reduced but I know that it has increased. But I would never understand how the left and right eye have different powers. There is something my left eye has managed that the right eye did not learn. Poor, I thought I only had a problem of hand-eye co-ordination. If I don’t have my glasses, my life comes to a standstill. You have come close to kissing distance for me to recognise you.

For all the troubles I’ve gone through because of glasses, I must say that I grown to love wearing glasses. Sometimes it’s plain lucky that people presume glassers for learned, educated, intellectual and sophisticated men. Good for us. We can continue to wonder how to locate ‘my documents’ while people mistake us for partitioning the hard disk.