The Importance of Spectacles – II

There might not be any relation at all between spectacles and intelligence but there certainly is a very curious relation between spectacles and the perception of intelligence. A person with spectacles on his face is approached with a certain, conscious or sub-conscious, presupposition of subtle intelligence.

“Oh a person with thick glasses. Hi. How do you do? What do you study? Oh, engineering? What, Electrical engineering? That’s great. Engineering is a tough racket, but you’re certainly intelligent enough to endure it, I gather. Pleasure to meet you. Would you be so nice to give me tips on improving me intelligence? I have a real bad memory. Oh thanks a lot, very valuable. Very valuable indeed. Thank you so very much for your precious time.”

Turns out that the glasses were an endowment of constant close observation of third-rated movies, and electrical engineering was never advanced beyond the first year. Perception of subtle intelligence.

But the genuine advantage of glasses unveils itself during the “depression era” of the students, that is to say, during the agony of exams. Sitting right next to a guy who’s intelligence in reality extends beyond presupposition would be entirely useless if the spectacles ditch you in the nick of time, following some unfortunate incident.

“Darn it! I should’ve had the new ones made yesterday. Shucks! Alright, the examiner is away, let’s get the smart ass. Hello there, what’s the answer to this MCQ? B? speak a bit clearly man. What? C? Don’t moan! C for Cat? No? What, come on man, a little louder. Don’t be a chicken!” When all a sudden a hand shows up on your shoulder which apparently belongs to the examiner. “what on earth…?!! Oh no no, I wasn’t trying to get any information. I have my question paper down there. Yeah, down there, in his feet…was only trying to recover it. There. Ah yeah, got it, you see. Next time? Oh no never, I’d be careful…. Damn these glasses! son-of-a-bitch almost got me by neck!”

Glasses do strengthen your relationships with people. They get you closer, in a literal sense. That’s because you can’t really see them from far. They keep waving hands at you from distance and you keep scratching your head, or caressing you chin, or picking your nose thinking that no one is observing you, and realize a presence only when you listen a couple of swears, apparently directed towards you.

“Oh me? Why? What the hell? No, I never saw you. Well come now, why would I ignore you. You don’t mean anything to me…oh I mean..you don’t mean any harm to me…yeah, no not the frame… this time it’s the glass…sucker got cracked.”

Of Cinema, Cartoons and Classics

My ardent love for Cinema and cartoons is as old as my love for books, or adventure, or solitude, or chocolates and ice-creams, that is, it’s deeply ingrained within me since ever. I vividly recall the countless evenings spent with The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Oliver Twist, Tom n Jerry, Bugs Bunny and the list is actually infinite. I and my siblings used to imitate the cartoons characters and to cite one such imitation, I was Theodore while my elder sisters were Alvin and Simon. We used to sacrifice the cool air-conditioned environment of the sleeping-room and slip out in the scorching summers of Bahrain just to watch the cartoons.

Eventually, as time passed, my love for Cinema and Cartoons only intensified. While I kept loving and cherishing the timeless Bugs Bunny and Tom n Jerry, the cinematic craze shifted towards more serious aspects. Not that I ceased to enjoy comedies; quite the contrary: I enjoyed them all the more, only the aesthetics of cinema gripped my attention and stiffened it with time. Of course I started with the usual thriller and horror stuff but eventually and inevitably got tired of them and it was in my late teens, during the college, that I started moving back in time, towards the classics and in the recent years particularly, I’ve turned into something that friends call a ghost from the past, thanks to my passionate love for the golden classics from olden days.

If the chords of my memory serve me right, the first true classic that I savored was the timeless masterpiece Gone With The Wind, and it left me mesmerized for several days. Thence commenced my passion for the classics which with time only enhanced beyond bounds. December 2005 introduced me with The Godfather phenomenon, triggering the Pacino-fanaticism, which actually persists to the day. I watched the movies of Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, indulged in heated debates on the movie forums comparing and discussing their mastery over the art of cinema and started a movie blog. During the process, I made acquaintances that shared my craze for cinema and learned to appreciate the artistic intricacies of direction. Marlon Brando’s work during the 50s was an eloquent testimony of his being one of the undisputed Kings of his art. In the ocean of direction, the genius of Stanley Kubrick left me astounded and his 2001: A Space Odyssey drove me into philosophical mood for quite some time. Hitchcock-ean twisted thrillers satisfied the enigmatic tastes while Scorsese’s psychological masterpieces proved to be one of their kind. Leon and Ford’s Westerns quenched the romantically adventurous side of Self.

After this post-70s era I dived into the golden era of Hollywood, and this dive was worth priceless gems and everlasting treasures. Citizen Kane, Casablanca, GWTW, The Philadelphia Story, It’s A Wonderful Life, Grapes of Wrath and many other classics are meant to leave everlasting impact on you. Cary Grant, Humphrey Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart were the very epitome of a true movie star with all their classical sophistication while Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn were the divine sprites of beauty and artistic breath. The Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby are two of my favorite romantic comedies of all time. Katharine Hepburn, the name that simply transcends all praise. With the passage of time, I’ve found myself compelled to agree with the notion that the Golden Era was indeed matchless.

Eventually, I turned me attention towards the European cinema and the first thing that hit me left me dumbfounded: the genius known as Ingrmar Bergman. No words can explain the artistic and cinematic genius of Bergman and no movies have surpassed him in dealing the subjects he masterfully portrayed in his movies. The Seventh Seal and Winter Light are the movies that get into your head and you find yourself hurled into the Bergman’s world, living as it’s anguished characters, facing the same conditions and crisis. Persona caused psychological convulsions, and if you ask me at present, Bergman is my favorite director without a second though. This journey into European cinema, which would eventually take the turn towards the Asian cinema, continues to quench the literary, aesthetic and philosophical thirst.

All I can hope is to one day deliver – even one true masterpiece would suffice – like these giants of cinema, the most exquisite form of art.

On The Importance Of Spectacles.

There are these fancy spectacles of all shapes and colors; but I won’t be wasting my time honoring their faithfulness and lauding their utility. I’d like to dedicate my time and attention to the beloved spectacles that have proved to be my faithful companion for the last twenty-one months, through every thick and thin, even though there have been several incidents that attempted to undermine our solemn relationship. This is the longest era of persistence that we’ve abided, ever since the day nature decreed my wearing glasses – that was 6th of March, 2000. I do remember the exact date because that was the day when I was denied an admission in PAF college Sarghoda on the basis of weak eye-sight, after having passed written test, medical examination and as an inner acquaintance of father informed, the interview too. Turned out that the required eye-sight was 6/6, while my shortsightedness had degenerated to 6/36. I never took it much seriously as I myself wasn’t much interested in becoming a part of PAF; the only thing that grieved me was that dad was hurt. Throughout my adult life, I’d done that several times; unintentionally hurting him when actually I tried to afford some felicity. But anyways, ifs and buts are quite a disturbing part of history and it’s dreadful consuming yourself with them.

So the first few months proved to be a two-fold escapade. One one hand, I had to adjust myself with this new peril enshrouding my nose and ears, and on the other, I had to constantly avoid momentary lapses to keep this peril intact. The first venture, I undertook quite efficiently, but the second one proved to fatal, considering my horrendously careless nature. To cite a classic case, once I just yawned myself into the door – now that was quite careless and I couldn’t figure out where the door emerged from all of a sudden – but the end result was that the glasses were gone.

Eventually, the dust of the adventures settled down and I gradually came to terms with the inevitable ordeal. Time passed quite smoothly with the glasses for a while until the advent of the little devil nephews of mine. Among other loots, their favorite plunder are my poor spectacles, and they have this knack of snatching the glasses off my face with the swiftness of light and firmness of a little leopard. At one moment, they are the very epitome of innocence and tranquility while at the very next instant, they can turn out to be the demon despoilers, and the victim, as usual, happen to be my poor glasses. These hostile relations continue to exist between the cute fiends and the glasses to this day, and even though I’m always attempting my profoundest efforts to tilt the balance of survival in the favor of the usual victim, I mostly find myself at my wits end. The little jollies are just naturally too good at their expertise.

Once you get entangled in this web, or shall I say glass, of spectacles, there’s only one way to see the world; through the magnifying lens. The world viewed without them would be something like melted colors on a canvas, with the images fluxed into each other. There’s no black or white, only the floating shades of grayish existence. You take a walk down the street and can’t really recognize a person until he is head-on with you, without slightly realizing your constant staring. The most adventurous, or rather a mis-adventurous episode forms while driving a car. You’re driving a car on a country-side highway on a smooth summer evening when all of a sudden, you realize that another vehicle is also in your lane. This alarms you, but what actually appalls you is the realization that no only that, it’s coming towards you! Being out of your glasses and now quite out of your wits, you straight away pull the car over to the road-side, this time not realizing the tree in your way.

So as it turns out, throughout the years, those little glasses sitting your nose and gripping your ears, are either a great friend you’re blessed with or a grave misery inflicted upon you – anyway you put it, or rather feel it.

(to be continued)

Pakistan Urdu School

It’s 5 am and just when I was planning to go to slumber while giving a final aimless browse to Facebook, I unintentionally came across the Pakistan Urdu School group and next instant I was reading the message board. Shit! all those golden memories from good ol’ days came flooding in and I almost wept!

I miss my childhood days in Behrain, but I miss Pakistan Urdu School more than anything else. I wonder where to start from? Those sprints at the ground near the bus-stop while waiting for the bus, the riots and games inside the school bus or playing football and exchanging WWF stickers during game periods and recess. Those stickers were indeed an obsession!

My first teacher was Mrs. Aarzoo Wadood and I can vividly recall her motherly face. She taught us English. Among my early friends were Waqar (my best friend), Aaftaab, Salman, Fardan Butt etc.

I would never forget the day when I, along with a friend of mine, Nasir, plotted to escape after the school time and instead of school bus, go home on foot! It was indeed an adventure for two 7-year olds to go on foot all the way around 5, 6 miles. We had worn jogging suits under the uniform which we took off so that any passing school-bus won’t recognize us. That was awesome, though I won’t relate what happened with me at home after that! =P

After the school time, we used to play again at the stop in the scorching heat of mid-Summer days, even though we almost always got scolding for that.

The memories of P.U.S are among the most precious recollections for me and I hope one day I would be able to pay back a little part of the fete that PUS honored me with!