A disastrous nightmare had awakened me in the middle of the night..In the nightmare i was experiencing the horrors of being blind..I saw myself heplessly running from pillar to post in sheer desperation to regain my vision but all in vain..Finally it was left to me to survive in this atrocious world without any eyesight..
ohhhhh!!!!!!!
I went short of breath. I looked around in my room for some water.. As i gulped down swigs of water i felt an excruciating pain in my right eye.. I joked with myself that the aftereffects of my nighmarish experience had passed on to real life..Shrugging the pain aside i went on to sleep..
5:00am, Sunday
After an hour , i woke up again.. Unable to open my eyes fully, i made a valiant effort to have a cursory look on the hanging wall clock , the sound of which has always pierced through my ears everytime i sat in concentration , planning for my future..
First , i blamed it on the the badly lit room for it was obviously impossibe not to be able to see from one eye.. i illuminated the dark room by switching my bedlamp on, but the illumination was to be sensed only partly by ONE EYE..
I woke up in horror .. I was scared to death .. somehow I made my way to the switches to make the tubelight glow, in hope that i might see then from the other eye..
But that was not to be..
With my heart thumping like that of the hanging wall clock with the noise piercing through my ears , i looked up in the mirror for the errant eye , that was going to give me sleepless nights thereafter for many days..
A series of Q & A followed.. i was involved in a small tussle..
Q: was the eye red?
A: No.. blood red..
Q: painful??
A: As if somene was pushing a blunt needle right through the lens in a desperate attempt to make a hole.
Q:could i see?????????
A:i wish i could say yes!!!
Yes yes ..ohh yes..I could not see from the right eye. I rubbed my eyes with my hand. I impatiently splashed water into my eye..once and twice..again ...and again.. but in vain..
I had never experienced such a thing before..a thousand pictures flashed across my eye..The thought of having to live blind was sending shivers down the spine.
Was i still dreaming?? .. No impossible..
But what is this?? Where is my eyesight?? Where is my eyesight?????
I felt like screaming.. I left no stone unturned in holding my tears back.. Some recalcitrant drops found brimming over as an easy pathway..The sudden memory of childhood , mom & dad only assisted in the process..
Should i commit suicide?? no no its a crime.. But i cant live without my eyes.. no no.. But there have been so many greats who have achieved the unthinkable in spite of being blind..yes.. yes..
The imagination of will power being the strongest of all gave some solace..But the feeling was shortlived..The trauma of sudden loss of eyesight outweighed the strongest of will... Never had i known the inherent weakness of human beings so well.. Never had i known so convincingly that lectures on will power looked good only in classes and cant be emulated in real life!!!!
As i kept battling an unknown condition of the eye , my friend paid me a visit..Hurriedly he took me to a doctor.. Amazed at my condition, the doctor gave a confident smile and said "your vision will be restored in a week."
As far as my memory goes i cant imagine of a sentence which was more comforting..After staying for a week at the hospital i was allowed to go with a little blurred vision...The "unknown" condition of the eye was called "uveitis" of the eye , for which, the doctor said, there was no cure..Such sudden attacks of vision-loss will keep happening and i have to approach a doctor as fast as i could to prevent permanent vision loss..
As i walked back to my room , i kept looking for the answers of some searching questions..
Why me?? Why an incurable disease?? What if i lose my vision completely when the attack resurfaces..??
I closed my eyes. I stood frozen..For a moment i could not hear anything, except for the piercing noise of the ticking wall clock, waiting anxiously for my return..
A smile flitted across my lips..A thought struck and left immediately, at lightening speed..A thought for which i have no words, no sentences & no grammar to communicate..
I opened my eyes in triumph..In spite of having a blurred eye , i could see more clearly than ever before.. I had already passed the test that god kept aside for me.. The test of will power..The same will power which i had relegated as a bookish subject was with me during my stay at the hospital without my noticing..It was the same will power which brought a smile on my face even at times of adversity..It was the same will power which transmogrified the imagination of mom & dad from being a source of tears to a source of inspiration..
Knowledge of my disease being incurable did not intimidate me then..The thought of committing suicide almost made me laugh..The imagination of being with mom & dad further strengthened my belief in god..
I consider myself lucky to have suffered an incurable attack... Now my love for the erring eye has increased manifold for surely it is "THE VISIONARY EYE.!!!!!"
