How dated sounds Dorothy Parker’s classic couplet,
“Men do not make passes
at girls who wear glasses!”
Girls – the very word now sounds sexist – don’t have to wear glasses if they don’t want to. They can simply wear contacts. Or revert to glasslessness thanks to the affordable miracle of laser eye surgery. More interesting, though, is that female celebrities, actors and models, are increasingly appearing in public with colorful spectacles. Far from appearing dismal, male-daunting apparitions, they look downright human and attractive. Jennifer Aniston to Jennifer Lopez, Zoe Saldana to Anne Hathaway, all are turning heads with their fetching, bespectacled look.
“Men do not make passes
at girls who wear glasses!”
Girls – the very word now sounds sexist – don’t have to wear glasses if they don’t want to. They can simply wear contacts. Or revert to glasslessness thanks to the affordable miracle of laser eye surgery. More interesting, though, is that female celebrities, actors and models, are increasingly appearing in public with colorful spectacles. Far from appearing dismal, male-daunting apparitions, they look downright human and attractive. Jennifer Aniston to Jennifer Lopez, Zoe Saldana to Anne Hathaway, all are turning heads with their fetching, bespectacled look.
I can still remember the time when glasses were not in vogue even for men. Those clumsy, wiry things were only for men over the hill. When glasses became more common, I even heard older people expressing suspicion that younger men were wearing them for style, not because of limited vision. Hardly. Actually, farsightedness or hyperopia affects three-fourths of men over forty; nearsightedness or myopia is also fast becoming an epidemic.
I was ten when I wore my first pair. The blackboard in school was blurring for months, but I resisted turning a ‘four-eyed’ geek. It would be a catastrophe on the playground, I thought. I could no longer be a wicket keeper in cricket; nor could I play the kind of rough hockey and football I played with my friends. I also remembered Oliver Wendell Holmes’s sardonic comment that revolutions are not made by people who wear glasses (only much later did I visit Leon Trotsky’s home in Mexico and began to compute in the age of Bill Gates, and knew that people who don’t see well can still see their way to a revolution).
Finally, father dragged me to an eye doctor, an old, grandfatherly neighborhood guy, who checked my distance vision with some stained cardboard charts and wrote out a prescription. Only a week later, I had my shiny new glasses in a coffee-colored shell frame.
I was ten when I wore my first pair. The blackboard in school was blurring for months, but I resisted turning a ‘four-eyed’ geek. It would be a catastrophe on the playground, I thought. I could no longer be a wicket keeper in cricket; nor could I play the kind of rough hockey and football I played with my friends. I also remembered Oliver Wendell Holmes’s sardonic comment that revolutions are not made by people who wear glasses (only much later did I visit Leon Trotsky’s home in Mexico and began to compute in the age of Bill Gates, and knew that people who don’t see well can still see their way to a revolution).
Finally, father dragged me to an eye doctor, an old, grandfatherly neighborhood guy, who checked my distance vision with some stained cardboard charts and wrote out a prescription. Only a week later, I had my shiny new glasses in a coffee-colored shell frame.
It felt like a new chapter in my life. Suddenly everything seemed to have an edge, a clear definition. Every color seemed clearer and brighter. From our second-floor apartment, even the lawn appeared greener, the flowers more vivid. From the terrace, I could see the discolored buildings, an extended slum and its hovels, the shapeless yellow building at the corner where some of my friends lived, and the distant chimneys of a leather factory spitting gray columns of smoke. All of a sudden, everything was clear.
But nothing was more amazing than what I saw in the mirror. I barely recognized the bespectacled person I saw. My friends in the school the next morning had strong opinions: some thought I looked nerd-like, some said I looked older, while others felt the glasses added some gravitas to my lanky frame. Clearly, nobody thought that I looked the same.
But nothing was more amazing than what I saw in the mirror. I barely recognized the bespectacled person I saw. My friends in the school the next morning had strong opinions: some thought I looked nerd-like, some said I looked older, while others felt the glasses added some gravitas to my lanky frame. Clearly, nobody thought that I looked the same.
But how different I realized two weeks later. We sat for our history test, and halfway through the short guy to my left whispered, “Hey, what year was the second Battle of Panipat?” Even as I wrote, I whispered back, “1556.” Then I looked up and saw that the invigilator was looking directly at me. But he did nothing. Ten minutes later, when the head invigilator came for inspection, I heard the invigilator report that two students were conferring, against the rules. I froze. I knew I was in for trouble and could see no escape. I had a sudden idea. I took off my glasses and put it inside the desk, out of sight. The invigilator came with his supervisor to my desk, took a look at me and felt uncertain. He was unsure of identifying me now. Seeing this, the head invigilator simply issued a general warning against talking during the test and left. My danger was over.
For decades I wore my glasses, though the lens changed. Through college and university, I was the guy with glasses. When I took a job and started travelling, not only the lens changed, I was induced to move to fancier frames. Metal frames when they were in hip, rimless glasses when they seemed swankier. As I started travelling overseas, I carried duplicate glasses in case I lost my glasses or broke them, as I did periodically. Glasses were my ever-present companion. So much so that I occasionally walked into a shower or went to bed with the glasses on.
For decades I wore my glasses, though the lens changed. Through college and university, I was the guy with glasses. When I took a job and started travelling, not only the lens changed, I was induced to move to fancier frames. Metal frames when they were in hip, rimless glasses when they seemed swankier. As I started travelling overseas, I carried duplicate glasses in case I lost my glasses or broke them, as I did periodically. Glasses were my ever-present companion. So much so that I occasionally walked into a shower or went to bed with the glasses on.
Then I met Jacqueline, the well-regarded eye specialist I now consult in Washington. Why do I keep wearing the complex lenses for reading as well as distance, adjusted with annoying periodicity for astigmatism? A swift surgery, Jacqueline’s firm admonition for a regime of eye drops for some weeks, and I walk into a bright, sunlit day without anything around my eyes. I hadn’t lived a day without glasses since I was ten. I feel nearly naked.
Friends do a double take. Acquaintances can barely recognize me on the street. My brothers, who both wear glasses now, think I look strange. But I walk, jog, read, drive and watch a movie without glasses. But, from habit rather than necessity, I still often carry a pair of glasses, the way some mothers carry a pacifier for their baby.
A wiseacre friend made the wisecrack that I had lost my specs appeal, but I no longer wanted to make a spectacle of myself.
Friends do a double take. Acquaintances can barely recognize me on the street. My brothers, who both wear glasses now, think I look strange. But I walk, jog, read, drive and watch a movie without glasses. But, from habit rather than necessity, I still often carry a pair of glasses, the way some mothers carry a pacifier for their baby.
A wiseacre friend made the wisecrack that I had lost my specs appeal, but I no longer wanted to make a spectacle of myself.
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