Tooth malaise

I have a really bad tooth ache and this is driving me nuts. My gums feel swollen and the pain shoots up to my ear and badgers my skull and then finally, when it is lodged in the centre of my brain, skates back right to the rotten tooth.

I have no clue why I am having so many corporal afflictions now.

At the last Crossword sale, I bought a book on healing your life or something by Louise Hay. She co-relates a physical discomfort to an emotional state. I found some of that to be remarkably true. For example, tendency to put on weight around the hips pertains to stubborness with parents, weight around the tummy means fear of insecurity and the need to find some sort of a shield/ cloak. Also, if you have a tooth problem, it means that you find your deepest beliefs eroding as a consequence of change. (In my case, change being shifting to a place where no-one seems to know how the autorickshaw meter works – at least in theory.) Et cetera, et cetera.

The antidote prescribed in the book is to make affirmations to yourself and then go forth and live a good, clean life.

Back to the gut-wrenching pain in my mouth.

I went to the dentist this morning. There was load shedding in Mulund, so the doors of the clinic were open and the dentist was reading an article on Ram Jethmalani.

The tooth fairy is a nubile 28-30 year old with square hands and brown, silky hair. She wears a sari with dainty sequin embellishments and sometimes tucks a neat, little bud in her ponytail.

Now, I had gone to cap one tooth,but another one was hurting really bad. She took a look and said that I would need to have a root canal done. Hell.

I told her that we’ll do the capping and leave the RC for another time. I wouldn’t be able to bear more pain in that area right then. We got talking and I shared how I thought that the Root Canal was probably some form of dental guillotining that originated in the time of a bloody revolution or something. Her disagreement wasn’t compelling…so that scared me more.

‘It depends on how it’s done,’ she said.

Fair enough.

What followed was a rather funny reassurance. Actually she wanted to be a gynaecologist but didn’t get the required medical seat. So, she opted for dentistry instead.

‘I’d love to have been a gynaecoligist’, she said a tad ruefully. ‘I’d have been very good at it.’

I assured her that it was probably all for the best.

‘Don’t worry,’ she remarked. ‘I’ll take out the tooth the way I’d have taken out a baby – very, very gently.’

For some reason, I was a little horrified. This statement brought to my mind a very disturbing picture of children coming out through the mouth. (Damn my brain!)

Later, I saw the humor in the situation and giggled. But on my way back, I wondered. What if, at some later stage, I get an obstetrician who really wanted to be a dentist? Who’d get out the baby the way she would extract a tooth?

Damn my brain. Really!