A cataract Operation

Radheshyam:

It is unusual not to receive something from you in such a long while. Hope all is well and you’ve just taken off to one of your trips. Maybe you are dropping folks that don’t respond to your communiqués from your mailing list. Just in case that is so, to hedge my bets, here’s something telling you what’s going on with me:

HOW TO PROPERLY GOUGE OUT EYES

This was 1972; winter I think. I had skipped Pakistan and arrived back in Dhaka and found myself unemployed. Had not started panicking yet about my jobless status. After a yakkety yak session with friends at Bangladesh Bank, (the central bank), I was going back home in a rickshaw. Just a short distance down the road, there was a commotion. Two supposed “chhintai kari’s” [valuables-snatchers] were being subjected to “gono pituni” [beating by public].

My rikshawalla took a look, came back and asked eagerly to borrow the pin I had idly picked up at Bangaldesh Bank and was holding in my hand. I asked, “What are you going to do with it?” “Pierce their eyes; you can also, saar!” I was aghast. "How can you suggest such a thing? They are God’s creatures too," I said. That gave him pause; he seemed ashamed. In an abashed voice he said, "Saar, their eyes have been popped by inserting nails." I looked. Two men were prostrated on the ground. The ring leader of the mob had picked up a slab of concrete and was proceeding to hurl it down on the victims. Others were using bricks and debris lying about to do the same. Everyone was roaring with blood lust. The eyes of the two on the ground were oozing out of their sockets in a bloody gel.

Thus was the comical sadism of “Baburam Shapooray” gone mad. If you are not familiar with “Baburam Shapooray,” it is a children’s poem read and/or taught to Bangalee children that goes, as far as I can recollect, thus:

“Baburam shapooray

Kothha jaash bapu-ray?

Aye baba dekh-ay ja,

Duto shaap rekh-ay ja.

Jay shaap’er naak nei kaan nei

Koray naako phoosh phaash

Maaray nako dhoosh dhaash;

Shei shaap jento

Gota dui aan toh?

Teray meray danda

Koray dei thanda.”

Here’s my inept translation of it:

[Snake charmer Baburam

Where are you off to, my man?

Hey, come here, look,

Let me a couple of snakes book.

Snakes without fangs,

Unable to inflict pangs.

That sort of snake a couple

Bring me on the double.

Charging with my stick old -

I’ll kill them cold.]

Fast forward 40 years. July 31, 2012, my right eye was gouged out. August 21, 2012, my left eye was gouged out. But not to worry: both were gouged properly. It was done by a team of folks definitely not brought up on Baburam principles. They performed a procedure called cataract eye surgery. Although there was an anesthesiologist, his main purpose was to introduce a tranquilizer through an IV to calm me down during the operation. Scaredy cat that I am, I needed lots of calming down. As you know, cataract surgery involves inserting a needle in the eye to scrape out the cataract [by scraping out most of the lens of the eye] and implanting in said eye a plastic lens to take the place of the demolished original lens. You can imagine how painful that can be. Just thinking about it made me want to pass out. The surprise was, the pain killing anesthesia was entirely topical in the form of drops. I did not feel a thing and the whole process took about 20 minutes in the operating room. So pleasantly astonished was I, I pointed at the doctor and said, “He’s a magic man,” quoting Heart. ["But try to understand, try to understand/ Try try try to understand/ He's a magic man, mama/ He's a magic man."]

I have to keep using drops for a while, but I am fine. I certainly see better. There are certain drawbacks even to that. I had thought I had a relatively wrinkle free “khoma’ [Dhakaiya slang for face] for a 65 year old. Now I am faced with the actuality that not only do I have wrinkles, but also my wrinkles have wrinkles. I can also distinctly see every strand of gray hair on my head [not to mention, to use a Bangladeshi friend’s “bhasha” (language), other ‘unparliamentary’ places.]

Be well.

Saf

Safi

The above was sent by Safiul Huda.

On the one hand it gives the gory scene when eyes are gouged out of petty thieves.

On the other hand, we pay the surgeon to use his knife on our eyes.

It is all a case of intention.

A murderer is sent to the gallows on using his knife but a surgeon wins acclaim and wealth for using a knife.

When I was in college, a bicycle thief who used to lift the student's bicycles was caught one day.

After being beaten and put under running tap water in the winter in Ranchi, had his nails ripped off.

I don't know how the boys did it, I just heard about it later on.

Herd mentality is a very dangerous situation. People lose their senses and become part of the mob.

The most famous case of this was the French Revolution and the invention of the guillotine.