82.Narrow escape from losing one Eye
A few episodes
back, I had indicated how I
embarked on writing my first
text book in Control Systems Engineering. After returning
from abroad cancelling part of my
leave, I had nothing to do other
than routine teaching. Since I had
written two books and a few popular science articles in Malayalam, writing was
not akin to me. Since I was
doing most of the writing using PC in the office
or at home, editing was also not difficult. I was
doing most of my writing myself as I do not have the patience to correct
the proof a typist gives
me and then do it over and
over again except when official letters are involved. As
I was giving a course on ‘Advanced
Control Systems’ for the final year
B.Tech Electrical students, the
contents of the book were chosen as the same. This could fill in
the need of an exclusive book for the second course in Control
Systems offered for
many universities in India and abroad. As I was teaching the
same set of topics, there
was no need for extra reading of books and I started writing as I
teach in my class with the help of a
black board. From early years of my teaching, I was emulating some
of my teachers like late
Prof.S.Hariharan at TKMCE
using the black board extensively to write what I teach and many of my students may have copied down the
board work truthfully. Since Control Systems is a semi-mathematical subject, this
was ideally suited for my project. Also, the contents and layout of the
standard text books written by famous authors I have
referred earlier must have
affected by writing, but more or less
it was my way of presenting things. I used to refer to
books only for selecting the problems.
My way of writing books or articles then and even
now was to type it myself, edit and
correct it all by myself. Only sketches I used to draw in pencil
or pen on paper so that those who
are good in drawing could draw it properly, as drawing was my weakness always. As I
was writing the book, it became a reasonably big book with nearly 10 chapters
and approximately 600 printed pages
including figures. I was spending most of
my spare time typing this book
in the department except when I
was taking class or attending some
official meeting in the college. I used to take
the unfinished work home on a floppy (no pen drive then) and continue the work at home after dinner. Since those
days most of the computer
monitors were of the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) type, this
must have affected my eyes. I have
many defects in my character, one
of which is this anxiety to complete
a work I have started by working almost continuously day in and day out.(sort
of completion mania)
On all week days, I was driving
my Maruti 800 to NITC
along with my daughter in law in the morning. It seems on a particular
day something strange
happened. Probably I had been
typing a bit more on the previous
night. As I took my car to the
main road and was just leaving Arayadathu palam on Mavoor road, I
saw something black in one of my eyes. It was something like rain water
dripping down the front glass a car full of dirt. I was feeling as
if these were flowing in front of one my eyes. There was no other discomfort. By the time I reached Medical College, this was gone and I left my daughter
there and proceeded to NITC. I
did not
have any further problem during the day. When I returned home
in the evening, casually I told about this to my daughter doing post-graduation Ophthalmology and immediately she was
alerted. She was asking why I did
not tell her earlier and asked me
to go to her teacher and Head of the Department immediately. We went there and the Doctor examined
me and told me “ Sir, this is something
serious. If you don’t do some laser repair immediately your eyesight on this eye will
be gone. This is a threatened detachment
of the retina which will result in permanent loss
of sight. Fortunately for you, an expert
from Aravind Hospital Madurai
is vising Commonwealth Eye hospital
every Thursday and you can
meet him tomorrow to do the
procedure there. I will call
him and introduce you.” In fact,
one of my colleagues had
recently lost the eyesight of one
of his eyes by the same problem, retina detachment as he did
not take immediate care. Actually, what I saw in my eyes
was nothing but bleeding in the vitriol between the cortex and retina which appeared to be black streams of dirt. Next day I
approached the visiting
doctor and he corrected the break
in the retina by laser surgery and advised me rest for three weeks. Even though
it was in the middle of the semester and I was engaging a class Linear Systems Analysis
for 4th semesters, I
had to take one month’s
leave. After the surgery, a few
black spots still remain dancing
in front of my right eye which does
not disturb me seriously. But I know
these are rare and I cannot
ignore it totally.
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