When my neighbour sent me a fabulous bottle of pickles, I was happy but I did wonder why would anyone name their creation as ‘Bad mama’? It was only when my daughter started laughing hysterically that I wore my glasses to find that the bad was ‘Badi’!

In the past, when a friend ‘goggled’ to find answers and sent messages saying that she ‘lived’ us all, the children would be in splits. Given how tech-savvy our children are, it could not be blamed on autocorrect. I was extremely proud of not needing glasses and wore it as a badge of my having kept good eye hygiene through my life. After all, how else can you tell your children how good habits are useful?

But pride comes before many a fall. I postponed getting glasses even when the font on my kindle started increasing steadily to the point of there being only 4 sentences on a page. The rare times when I was buying groceries in a store, I sought help from the salesperson to read the price on the items. I don’t understand who the companies think they are selling to? It is only after a certain age that you can afford to buy certain delicacies and you need to buy certain items like supplements and flax seeds. I often rejected products because I found the company unmindful of the trauma they were causing.

Anyway, getting glasses brought life back in focus. I carry my glasses on a string when I go shopping. I look from over my glasses to talk to people much to the amusement of my kids. Oh, I am much more empathetic to people of advancing years. I still don’t need glasses for distance so unlike my husband, I can recognize people on the road and hide when necessary.

The other day I had put on subtitles for the show I wanted to watch. Well, the show is in English and I am generally able to follow the accents of people from the western world. Of late though they have started speaking in a manner that makes it necessary for me to turn up the volume. Ah well. Maybe watching Indian news where they speak in Hindi and repeat everything a million times would be a better idea. After all, there is nothing wrong with my hearing!