I'm just in time for my pre-surgery checkup at the dentist. It's 12:30 pm, mid afternoon for some, early morning for me. Dental treatments and the run up to them are quite tiresome experiences. And when you wake up hastily at noon and rush to the dentist just in time for your appointment, you expect things to get done and dusted so that you can return home to breakfast. Not lunch, breakfast. As the stars would have it, my checkup couldn't be done as scheduled 'coz the air conditioner at the dentists was broke. 'Can you please come back in an hour sir?' Yeah sure. Strangely i'm not angry. I'm looking forward to going home to a hot cup of chai and 24 hour news , which by the way is way more entertaining than ever before.
I come home to a disgruntled member of the opposition party who's opened up a can of worms with his just published book.
(Nostalgia - 'Can of worms' was the first and only James Hadley Chase book I ever read. Passable pulp fiction.)
The book in question falls just short of glorifying the man held responsible by popular belief for the country's partition. The last time I checked we were a democracy. The author in question however, is expelled from his party and a state even goes on to ban the book. Freedom of speech anyone? I always though he was an outsider in the party, never did fit the bill.
I hastily put the lid back on the can of worms and rush back to the dentist. He's going to have to contend with my chai-breath for the forced hour long dive into national politics. But dentists are always a step ahead - he comes in wearing a surgical mask and I have to rinse before he dives in. Damn!
He tells me I need to get an X-ray done to figure out just how my wisdom teeth will be extracted. One look and you know these can't just be wanked out using the pakkad. They're either growing inside my gums or are too dilapidated for traditional extraction.
Cut to the X-ray guy.
I am told to remove my ear-ring before my face can be bombarded with potentially but seldom dangerous invisible rays. I suddenly think about that weird woman I saw on the internet with more than a hundred piercings on her face. What if she ever had to go in for a dental x-ray. I chuckle at the thought and wonder how many minutes it would take her to remove all those studs on her face before stepping up for the x-ray.
I am made to perch my face rigidly on a rectangular stand and bite on a plastic rod while the x-ray machine moves around my head, taking shots from all angles. There's a mirror for me to see how unpleasantly funny I look. At that very moment I realize that God has granted me another of my wishes- I always wanted to know what being Hannibal Lectar would feel like. Not that being a cannibal is on my wishlist, but it definitely would be quite something to know what goes on inside his head. The metal frames around my face are vaguely reminiscent of the mask Hannibal is made to wear on him, if not as ghastly. I'm urging to blurt out a 'Hello, Clarise', but neither was there a beautiful FBI agent sitting beside me to complete the setting nor was I at liberty to let go of the plastic rod in my mouth.
Note to self - God has curious ways of granting your wishes. Very curious indeed.
A couple of days later, armed with an x-ray of imperfectly set teeth I set off to get the surgery done once and for all. There are three extractions to be performed, one of them surgical - Fuck! The surgeon injects me with enough anesthesia to kill a two year old. My gums, lips and tongues get heavier by the second as the numbness sets it. I decide to shut out the pain by reflecting, retrospecting and planning the rest of my life while the surgeon goes on plundering and tearing at my gums to shunt out the guilty teeth.
All I can do is guess what he is doing inside my mouth - the anesthesia has taken effect completely and unlike hair salons, dentists do not provide for strategically placed mirrors for the patient to know what's going on.
Here's what I think happened -
1 - I was made to bite onto gauze filled with the most bitter potion I've swallowed in my life.
2 - I'm injected with insane amounts of anesthesia.
3 - The surgeon cuts at my gums, loosens my tooth and plucks them out.
4 - My gums are stitched up.
There, nice and easy. Oh did I forget there were two more teeth to go?
Somewhere during this plundering I realize that life's not about hitting back at or avoiding the pain and suffering you get. It's more about taking it in your stride knowing that you're going to come out a new person. Much like a tooth extraction. Not a very attractive bargain though, considering that I would continue to bleed for a couple of hours afterward, my face would be swollen for three days and the pain would be so incredible that I would have to skip a day of work.
Note to self - The 'Flash' theory propounded in a previous post theory still stands. Anesthesia begets flashes of genius. Er, flashes of... whatever.
Contrary to popular belief I also realize that you don't always walk into the sunset with a curvy brunette by your side after confronting your pain. I walked home in the sweltering afternoon sun, content with marveling at intoxicatingly beautiful women every step of the road.....
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