After my eyes decided to show me the way to the hospital for the second time, I found myself sitting in the waiting room once again.

With very few patients this time around, I felt a bit cheerful about sitting there all alone listening to some instrumental music playing in the background.
The hospital was trying its best to make the patients feel comfortable.

Sitting there, switching my focus from the ceiling to the floor and back to the ceiling every half minute, I suddenly see a young boy with a huge dent on his forehead being carried away on a stretcher. His relatives were crying and walking alongside the stretcher.

I stare at the ceiling and this time I am focusing some place far beyond the ceiling. Some place which is far beyond my ability to focus infact.
Far.

The assistant at the reception knocks me gently and places my medical file on my lap. My turn had arrived.

I enter the room and the doctor looks at my eyes, looks down at my file, calls the assistant and says “Check his vision”.

So now I am huddled into the “vision room” (not quite sure what its actually called) which was quite dark and would have made a perfect room for setting up a home theatre system. Yeah, what was I think about a home theatre for?

Suddenly a fleeting glimpse of that young boy on the stretcher whizzes past my mind – A life that is probably struggling between this world and the other.
The grieving relatives – Lives that are struggling between hope and suffering.

I sit down on the metallic chair and my vision is checked with various combinations of lenses. After the 5 minute long test, I am certified as a visionary. Or well, certified to have correct vision.

The doctor now says that my pupils have to be dilated so that my eyes can be peeped into to ensure that there is no internal damage.

I found that quite ironical – My eyes, which enable me to see, were going to be looked into. Awesome eh?

My eyes are subjected to certain drops and my pupils dilate. Consequently, the world looks a lot brighter. I am unable to focus on anything within striking distance of me. Therefore, I can’t read, can’t look at my watch, can’t see my cellphone (with that solemn hopeful look), can’t pretty much do anything that I spend my 20 hours a day on.

But yes, the world looked a lot brighter. The doctor peered into my eyes, declared “All clear”.

I was left out in the open, with dilated pupils. The world was a blur. A bright blur. And I liked it that way. The moment details start appearing, you lose the magic. You lose it all.

So, I continued to enjoy that big blur, sitting in an auto and looking at the world go fuzzy all around me. I reach my room and fall off to sleep.

My dreams however didn’t turn out to be fuzzy. They were infact so detailed that I had to wakeup and get back the blur in front of me.

The party finally came to an end a good 4 hours later. I was able to see everything clearly and I discovered that the world was just the same as I had left it some hours ago.

Moral of the story – The world can be a brighter place.
If you want it. Er, if your eyes want it that is.

The last 30 hours:

Yesterday
1:00 pm – A study group meeting for completing the economics assignment.
Dhi Only One acts like he knows the world and its intricacies at the back of his right thumb and nods his head for every problem being discussed. He also takes up the responsibility of typing out the entire assignment, thinking in his head that its just about solving some simple problems.

3:00 pm – Not yet started the assignment.

4:00 pm – Not yet.

5:00 pm – Monaco Grand Prix about to start.

6:00 pm – A realisation that the assignment was supposed to be sent out to all by 6 pm.

7:00 pm – Frantically realising that economics is a subject devised by people who had all the time in the world.

8:00 pm – In awe of Cournot and Bertrand. They had managed to ensure that my evening was in their hands. (They are names of two theorems or laws or whatever)

9:30 pm – A debate whether I should skip dinner and continue on the assignment or take a break and go eat something. Thanks to this great bunch of friends, I make it for dinner. I no longer think I am an economist par excellence. (Funny that I thought that way inspite of scoring low in the first economics exam)

10:30 pm – First draft ready. A big thanks to my friends who offered so much help!

11:30 pm – A debate on one of the answers

12:00 midnight – Clueless about one question

2:00 am – A printout and turns out the printer has run out of paper. Some messing around with the printer happens for half an hour. Yeah, I am that stupid at 2 in the morning.

2:30 am – Frantic call to a friend and help arrives and I am with a printout of my assignment. I feel proud. I decide to venture again into the know-it-all territory but one glance at the watch puts me back to place.

3:00 am – Assignment dropped off, I return to my quad. One of the quad members is watching Lord of the Rings in the living room.

3:30 am – Lights go out and I can be saved.

7:00 am – Alarm goes off and I hit the snooze button.

7:45 am – I jump out of bed. Breakfast is pending and I need to be in class at 8:15 am.

8:05 am – I finally get out of the room, skipping breakfast and landing up in class a good 5 minutes early. Dhi Only One has been a good boy.

Having nothing to say, all I could do was post a picture of my room.

Ofcourse it was tidied up before being photographed.

Well, I had to delete the post that was in this position. After talking to the Devil today, I no longer felt the need to share it online.
Hence, the post is gone.

So much for fickle minds.

A long time ago, I had written about Apple’s Superbowl ad that was aired in 1984.
This ad leveraged the year in which it was aired (1984) and linked it with George Orwell’s famous novel – 1984.

Orwell’s novel was about the Big Brother concept wherein every member of the nation is hypnotically led and made to believe that all doings of the nation are right and necessary. (We see this prophecy being fulfilled almost completely in the past few years!)

Apple took this concept in the ad that was aired in the 1984. The caption stated:
“On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh.
And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984″

The Big Brother announcing on the screen was apparently a reference to the technology leader at that time – IBM. IBM’s blue colour was also made use of as a backdrop in the ad.
The girl wearing white and red represented Apple coming in and breaking the shackles of the Big Brother.

Watch the video here:

Video Courtesy: www.youtube.com

As part of the community service related club that I have become a part of here, I have come across a lot of information on various initiatives that currently operate in the world.
These initiatives range from working directly with NGOs to engaging big corporate houses to perform their social responsibilities.

Some of the websites I came across are:

http://www.socialenterpriseclub.com/ – The social enterprise club at Harvard Business School

http://hbsvco.org/ – A volunteer consulting organization at Harvard Business School that sponsors teams of students offering pro-bono consulting to social enterprises

http://mnc.nonprofitoffice.com/ – The MBA-Nonprofit Connection. This is a national nonprofit organization that facilitates the placement of business school students and graduates in nonprofit jobs

The last one, the MBA-Nonprofit Connection interested me to quite a large extent. More so because it provides career opportunities in the nonprofit sector.

Last but not the least, a friend of mine in this club sent me a link to the Give Foundation.
You can make donations online through this website.

Interesting months ahead.

Shit happens.
– A known quote

Shit floats for a long time.
– Anshul Gupta

A game that has been doing the rounds here – Help the drunk get home.
Like always, my score has been abysmally low.
However, many people here did score quite high.
Quite an addictive game. I like the swagger in the guy’s walk. And the way he says “Hellooo…Anybody home?”

Ladies and gentlemen, let the games begin.

Sitting in the waiting area of a big hospital can get depressing, especially if you are alone, have issues in your dumb mind, have couple of exams scheduled for the next day and are contemplating about your past life.

My right eye is suffering from something known as an auto-immune attack. Well, that’s what the doctor at the hospital said.

What is interesting about this “auto-immune” thing is that my immune system has gone overboard and has started attacking my own eye. I found that funny.

I mean, I am happy and all that my immune system is reared up and ready to kick some ass. But then I think its just taking things too far.
Its one thing to be well-armed and alert, its quite another to shoot down your comrades in the army on the pretext of target practice.

Getting back to the topic, so that is what the problem with my right eye is. The doctor also added this line – “As of now, there is no threat to your vision”.
I no longer found this whole thing funny.
The doctor continues – “The problem could start in your other eye as well.”
Then there is a silence.
I probingly ask, “Well?”
The doctor then says that I need to put some eye drops and most probably the whole thing should subside in a few weeks.
Phrase to look out for – “most probably”.

Like I said, hospitals are depressing. More on that in some other post.
Notice that when I say things like “more on that in some other post”, I never really follow it up with another post.

My eyes should recover. Visibly.

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