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01/24/2015

An eyes' story

I had a moment of solitude at the Consulate the other day...India,eye,passport

For the preparation of my child's passport, I was asked (by mail) to "communicate the size and color of the eyes of the child”. I was flabbergasted... The size of the eyes??? But since I had heard that the eye is the only organ of the body that does not grow after birth (a urban legend* by the way), I thought “well, it’s possible that they are indeed asking for the size of the eyes”. I therefore answered the said mail asking how exactly the size of the eye can be measured. And I was answered "for the size, you must measure it and tell me how many cm it is”. Great help!!

 I therefore went to the Consulate without the required information. Without fail, my interlocutor got offended that I had not followed his instructions. When I asked, face-to-face this time around, how the size of the eye can be measured, he told me to use a ruler! I then asked to borrow his and undertook to measure the eye of the baby. He nearly fell backwards: "not the eye, the size of the child!" 

“Ah! Easy! 48 cm!” 

"Ah no, it won’t do. The system doesn’t accept below 50 cm..." 

 

* "For a normal child born at term, the maturation of the eyeballs is almost reached at the end of the first two years, that of the Central retinas at the end of the fourth year; the maturation of the myelin of the conduction pathways ends at the end of the first decade." Source: http://lodel.irevues.inist.fr/oeiletphysiologiedelavision/index.php?id=134