By Uday Deshwal
It’s been 12 years since the day I stepped out of Navrang Opticians as a happy-but-slightly-embarrassed owner of an expensive pair of sunglasses. I remember feeling an inexplicable, capitalism-infused sense of confidence and eye-mancipation, like this pair of sunglasses was all I had needed to kickstart my post-college journey into adulthood.
But wow! 12 years! The world that I first witnessed from behind your tinted lenses has now changed beyond recognition. That’s how long you’ve been there for my eyes.
You have been my trusted companion through all my adventures in the past decade. You helped conceal the deep apprehensions in my eyes when I tried, as an unsettled young Masters’ student, to blend into the daily rhythms of life in a foreign country. You were there reassuringly embracing my face all through the 600-kilometre-long road journey when I decided to leave behind the only life I had known and move to Goa. You adapted with me, without any complaints, when you had to carry the additional weight of two face masks wrapped around you during those two horrific pandemic years. You were there alongside my amazed eyes and overwhelmed heart when I saw the mighty Pyrenees, the pristine blue sea and white-sand beaches in Andaman, and other parts of this country and the world that I never believed I’d actually see. And amid all this, you even managed to make my face look somewhat presentable at times, thanks to which I was able to get at least few decent photographs.
You have always been a safe space for me; like when you allowed foolish and outlandish hopes and dreams to float freely in the pool of my eyes as I watched a beautiful sunrise on top of a hill. And also, when my eyes needed to shed tears of disappointment and sadness as I watched a sunset on December 31st of another painfully unfulfilling year.
I am realising now that I may have taken you for granted. That you will always just be there in my backpack when I travel, on the mantel as I step out from home, or resting in my pocket or on a table in a cafe. I don’t even want to think about the day when you are damaged beyond repair or worse if I misplace you, because I don’t know what eye will do without you.
*’dhan‘ is wealth in Hindi and ‘bandhan‘ is the word for ties.
Uday Deshwal claims to have an ‘always wanted to be a writer but was diagnosed with impostor’ syndrome.
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