CHAPTER 1: THE CARTOON
Suresh was ten years old when the first pair of glasses arrived.
His teacher noticed it first. He was squinting at the blackboard. He was holding his textbook close to his face. He was missing the ball during games because he could not see it coming.
His mother took him to an eye hospital. The doctor put drops in his eyes. He looked into a machine. He wrote something on a piece of paper.
"Your son has myopia," the doctor said. "Weak eyesight for distance. He needs glasses."
The first pair was small. Round. Thin. The number was minus one point five.
Suresh did not mind at first. The glasses made the blackboard clear. He could see the ball coming. He could read the street signs. He felt like a boy with a new tool.
Then the number started growing.
Every year, his mother took him to the hospital. Every year, the doctor shook his head and wrote a higher number.
Minus two. Minus three. Minus four. Minus five. Minus six.
By age fifteen, the lenses were thick. The edges were visible. The frame was heavy. The glass pressed into his nose. When people looked at him, they saw the glasses first and his face second. The lenses made his eyes look smaller, like dark dots at the bottom of two glass wells.
The other boys in his neighborhood had a name for him.
"Cartoon."
They said it casually, like it was his real name. They did not mean to be cruel. They were just describing what they saw. A thin boy with thick glasses and tiny eyes. A cartoon.
Suresh stopped playing outside. He stopped going to weddings. He stopped attending family functions. He sat in his room and read books. The books were held close to his face. The glasses sat heavy on his nose.
His mother worried. His father was silent. The relatives whispered.
"Who will marry a boy who looks like that?"
No one.
By age twenty, the number was minus eight. The glasses were thicker than ever. The small-eye effect was stronger than ever. Suresh avoided mirrors. He avoided cameras. He avoided people.
But he did not stop working.
At age twenty-two, Suresh started the garment business.
He did not have a degree. He had failed his twelfth standard exams. But he had a sharp mind for numbers and a hunger to escape his father's small tailoring shop.
He started with two sewing machines and a loan of fifty thousand rupees from his uncle. He supplied cotton shirts to small shops in Bhuleshwar market. He woke at five in the morning. He worked until midnight. He saved every rupee.
By age twenty-five, he had five employees. By age twenty-eight, he had twenty. By age thirty, he had a small office in Bhiwandi and a monthly income of one lakh rupees.
The money changed his life. He moved out of the chawl. He rented a two-bedroom flat in a decent building. He bought a second-hand car. He sent money to his mother every month.
But the glasses stayed.
One lakh rupees a month could not fix the tiny eyes. It could not fix the thick lenses. It could not fix the word "cartoon" that followed him everywhere.
The first marriage proposal came when Suresh was twenty-five. The girl's family asked for a photo. Suresh sent the best photo he had. It was taken at a studio. He wore a clean shirt. His hair was combed. His glasses were polished.
The girl's family looked at the photo. The girl looked at the photo. She said, "He looks like a cartoon."
The proposal was rejected.
The second proposal came at twenty-seven. The same result.
The third at twenty-nine. The same.
Suresh stopped sending photos. He stopped meeting girls. He stopped hoping.
He was twenty-nine years old, successful and lonely, when he saw the advertisement on his phone.
A young woman with bright eyes and no glasses smiled at the camera. The caption read:
"Remove your glasses forever. ICL surgery. Safe. Painless. Lifetime freedom."
Suresh stared at the screen. His thumb hovered over the link.
Then he clicked.
