The thought kept hitting my thick skull, trying to penetrate: Why laugh at others' woes? Why not at our own? Even if someone, in a misplaced wave of sympathy, points out your flaws and has a hearty laugh at your expense? Right, I thought — I will do it.

Long before this self-help resolve, I remember the first such incident when I was just five years old. The trick played by my malformed eye. I was in a jubilant mood because I had passed a test in my first standard. Wanting to share this unexpected success, I was waiting near the window to surprise my elder brother as he returned home from school. And there he was—or so I thought. I shouted, “Raja!” (my brother’s name). “I have passed!” No reaction. Disappointed, I watched him walk past my house. Oh! It was another boy! That’s when I decided I would speak to my brother only if he was near me and I could touch and feel him. That’s what the feeling of shame does to you.

I was known as the small boy with the biggest spectacles and the thin boy with the thickest glasses. Not many incidents of derision happened for quite some time, until the last two years of my schooling. Our family had moved from cosmopolitan Delhi to conservative Madras. The school was more than 10 kilometers away, but luckily, there was a boy in my neighborhood who went to the same school and was in the same class. Public transport was the only way to cover this long distance. There was also a group of three girls from our locality who traveled with us; they attended a girls’ school three-fourths of the way along our route. Co-ed schools were rare in those days. We enjoyed sitting on opposite sides of the last row of seats on the bus. In those golden days, girls and boys, or men and women, never sat together. So we were nicknamed “the back-seat boys.”

We all chitchatted and teased each other. Inevitably, it ended with these lovely girls calling me “Shut up, grandpa!” And my mouth would stay shut for some time. But the next day, the fun continued. Maybe a couple of times, being called "grandpa" stung a bit, but I took it in stride—as if there was an option. These were naughty and talkative girls, and I dared not talk back. Those two years of traveling together were full of enjoyment and carefree teenage fun. I vividly remember their faces as they looked then and even their names. Those memories still hit me from time to time, and honestly, I silently pray that God keeps these girls happy.

We eventually moved to another house, and those carefree days came to an end.

Life took on a whirlwind of twists and turns, leaving no time to think about sight, vision, happiness, or free-spirited thinking.

At the ripe old age of 18, I joined a financial institution. My height then, as now, was and is 5'5", and I promptly stopped growing. With my heavy glasses—my power had reached -11 by then—some of my seniors must have thought, “Ha! Here comes a source of fun.” They started calling me SB—short for “Soda Butti,” referring to the thick bottom portion of soda bottles. Being a junior and heavily dependent on my job for my livelihood, I had to blink this away. Over time, I got so used to it that I’d forget to respond if someone called me by my actual name—okay, that’s not entirely true, just an aside. The reality is that I accepted the new nickname because, as always, there was no other choice.

To be continued in Part 3.