The Magnifier

The thrill of receiving gifts from someone.

I remember vividly. I was ten years old or so. On my birthday my elder brother bought me a pocket magnifier that could be folded inside a cool looking protective plastic cover.

I was ecstatic. My friends in our neighborhood followed me everywhere like firebugs. We used the magnifier in almost every conceivable way. To use it effectively I started to collect postal stamps. We used to focus July Sun into a narrow beam and burned newspapers, cats, car tires and then eventually our skin for curiosity. We used the magnifier to closely inspect the naked woman in stripping pens.

Those were the days. Black and White TV was just starting and quite awful to watch. There was no personal computers, no mobile phones, no Internet, no Facebook.

Despite these shortfalls we never seemed to lack excitement. We had plenty of Spaghetti Westerns, James Bond movies, WW2 movies in which German soldiers spoke in heavy Teutonic accent. We used to stroll to local ice cream shop, played street games mostly soccer or basketball for twelve hours in virtually empty streets. We told each other ghost stories at night time followed by bets to sneak into a hospital morgue in our street.

Nowadays sadly no one seems to appreciate the value of a simple gift like a pocket magnifier. Not only teens but grown ups as well. We locked ourselves into virtual worlds and we seemed to find other self gratifying means.

Presents are thrown on the sofa or left on the table unwrapped. We hardly express our gratitude. Well honestly no one seems surprised or feel grateful anymore. No one even thanks to each other anymore, even if they did it is not genuine.

We lost the human touch.