The first dental clinic I ever visited was located within the premises of a temple near my home. I was probably around nine years old at the time. I don’t remember why I was taken there—except for the promise of ice cream, which, as far as I recall, was never actually given to me. I wondered why I was taken to a doctor instead of a deity, which was the routine when we went to the temple. Two decades later, I’ve come to a conclusion: dentists are Gods.
We don’t think about dentists or gods when our teeth are in good shape. Mine had been great, until recently. I’ve kept my teeth cleaner than my body. I may have skipped a bath now and then, but I can’t recall ever missing a brushing. Whenever I smile, my granny used to compliment my row of teeth1.
Then came a day when all those toothpaste ads became relatable. After a month of trying to be vegan, and a day long shoot for Sidhu, I was starving and ordered a Shawarma. The first bite sent a singing ache from tooth to toe. We scrambled over the midnight to find a painkiller. I’ll blame any of my bad performance in that short film to that tooth ache.
I then made my first dental visit as an adult. I went to Clove, because my company’s medical insurance covered consultation fees there. That dentist had other plans to make money. He said my tooth has to be removed and he’d place a new tooth instead. I ran to my mom.
My mom has a troublesome past with her teeth. Her father, my kanjoos2 grand-father, only had one solution whenever my mom got tooth ache in her childhood: pluck it off. As a result, my mom doesn’t have a couple of molars. So, she was prudent enough to advice me that removing tooth may not be a good solution and that I should see another dentist. There was one right in front of my home3. Just that I had to pay consultation fees.
She didn’t remove my tooth. She didn’t even do a root canal treatment initially. She did some filling and prescribed medicines. My tooth ache subsided for a few months but it pained again. She decided that root canal had to be done. It was a painful couple of weeks, but I told myself that this will be the end of my pain.
Tooth ache is like that Betaal in Vikram & Betaal story. It keeps happening in a loop. I, like Vikram, tried several things to deal with it. I got an electric brush. I started brushing twice a day. I also researched on the best time to brush teeth4. Yet, the tooth-ache kept coming back. It was the same tooth that got root canal treatment. Apparently, some narrow gap formed between the tooth and gum (gumline) through with food entered and hosted bacteria to infect my gums. Dentist asked me to massage my gums regularly and I, uhm, didn’t do that, regularly. In my defence, I got the pain when I massaged regularly as well. It is a stochastic process. Massaging will only reduce the probability of food leaking through the gumline.
This week, hopefully as a final fight against the Betaal, I underwent a periodontal laser surgery. The dentist opened the gum with the surgical knife, burned the infected tissue with a laser, added some bone graft powder to compensate for the bone I lost to bacteria, and then stitched back the gum. I smelled that something burnt when she applied laser, but thanks to local anesthesia it didn’t pain. However, I apparently bit inside my lips under anesthesia and it formed an ulcer there. So, I’m yet to smile without holding my lower jaw immediately.
As I wrote to you in the previous letter, uncertainty is God. So, I will just pray to dentists and Gods that I don’t write again about my tooth ache. Worst case, I hope that bacteria or whatever organism attacks a different tooth next time. Leave the second molar on my left lower jaw, please.
I like to put poetry to screen. I made a reel on the poem ఈ రాత్రి (This Night) written by Devarakonda Balagangadhara Tilak. If you want to say that you are unable to sleep dramatically, this is how you should say:
I just learnt that comparing a good row of teeth to pomegranate seeds is a classical literary device. Here is a line from a poem by medieval poet Bidyapati: Her teeth pomegranate-seeds on lips of ruby.
I picked some kanjoosness from him, I guess.
brush after dinner + rinse before breakfast + morning after breakfast | When to brush your teeth?