Today's India

Just as optometry in India continues to suffer in an atmosphere of non-regulated practice despite its having been introduced more than half-a-century ago in 1950s, the contents of my amateurish poem in Hindi, `Aaj ka Bharat’, written in 1980s, continue to depict a picture of events that still hold good after so many years!

Dr. Narendra Kumar
OptometryToday@gmail.com

Winning over disability!

Visually challenged children form a human pyramid to break a clay pot during the dahi-handi celebration ahead of Janamshtmi in Mumbai on August 20, 2011. Source: Hindistan Times.

And, optometry, despite odds, continues to render useful service to community via various avenues like ophthals’ clinics, own private set-ups, hospitals, MNCs, teaching institutions, and dispensing optical outlets!

Dr. Narendra Kumar
OptometryToday@gmail.com

Optometry's dilemma

Like this beautiful, but submerged, hut on the banks of swollen Ganga in Allahabad, optometry, the first line of defense against blindness, continues to suffer in the non-regulated atmosphere in India, the largest democracy in the world!

Dr. Narendra Kumar

Baring it all to grab eyeballs

While I don’t believe in the daring act of baring it all to grab eyeballs, as resorted to by French footballers facing defending champions Germany at the Women’s World Cup in Berlin recently (Picture shows Gaetine Thiny in Bild as reported by Hindustan Times, July 4, 2011), optometrists in India perhaps need to do something unique to juggle out government authorities from their hibernation to be able to rise to the just demand of introducing legislation to regulate the practice of optometry – primary eye care – in the hands of those qualified!

Dr. Narendra Kumar

Spensthrift or economiser?

My rolling in the left-over shaving cream to one end and cutting the tube in two parts was being observed in disbelief by my 11-year-old grandson; but when I explained that the remaining part of the gel would suffice for leathering my beard for at least 10 days, he was really impressed and said: “Gandhi ji, too, used to utilise for rough work papers printed or typed on one side!” Now, I don’t mind if someone labels me as a `spendthrift’ as I consider myself to be an `economiser’.

Dr. Narendra Kumar

Do you believe in short-cuts?

Morning walk is supposedly the best exercise that doesn’t cost a penny and helps you out with the effective mobility of all your body joints, better blood circulation and increased vitality.

Prior to visiting the religious shrines Badrinath and Kedarnath, I had consistently tried to increase the duration of my walk to be able to cope up better with the otherwise well-laid path of the hilly terrain! (Picture shows family eager to start the voyage).

When we go, say, to a nearby park for a morning walk, the idea is to walk as much as we can. But we seem to have become so used to taking short-cuts in almost every walk of life that while covering the inner boundary of the park, we turn to extreme right while taking a right turn forgetting that we in India traditionally follow the `keep to the left’ rule.

This type of short-cut (that reduces our walking distance) is not only against the goal of walking `as much as you can’ but also puts the person coming from the opposite direction in trouble.

So, the next time while embarking on our voyage to morning walk let us ask ourselves, “Do I really need to take a short-cut?”

Dr. Narendra Kumar
OptometryToday@gmail.com

Avoid the `easier' approach!

I would like readers of the eye care blog to go through the above editorial from Vol. 36, No. 1, March 2010 issue of Optometry Today quarterly journal.

Dr. Narendra Kumar