The Dentist

12 December 2006, Lahore


Ok let me make some thing clear, I hate doctors.. not as persons or personal human beings but as in Doctor - patient kind of thing, their receptions, the patient's chair and the dentist's chair !! If I do get sick, I am almost dragged to the GP! (there are exception however, say to get a sick note for). Now this was the sole reason why I am not a doctor (I’d like to believe that I would have made it to a decent Med college in Pakistan) and a Chartered Accountant. I could not get over the fact that I would be doing some thing all my life, which I actually loath personally other wise. I was quite good in Biology and scored the highest marks in my school in class 10, well then again I did that in Urdu (and alas I am not a journalist or a writer), come to think of it I did score the highest in Pakistan Studies (in class 12) and am told it was probably the highest in the Federal Board, overseas stream (but hey I am not a historian or a Political Science expert) although I am told I will be a good politician by one of my close friends (its lost on me though). Ahh the vagaries of being born a male in a third world country – middle class family. You don’t really get to decide what you want to be just because you like it. Its about the economies and money, well its just about money really! Having said that, I would not have want to be born a female, especially in a third world country (now I am not being a male chauvinist, just being plain honest.. In fact I think there is a bit of Women lib in these lines). I mean Women in our societies do have this option of doing what they really like, well most of the times at least.

Now coming back to the topic. Doctors and Dentists, because I hate visiting one,, I try to be on best behaviour with my body, so as never to get sick in the first place. More so with my teeth, I take good care of them because the last thing I want to do is end up in the dentist’s chair. Yesterday, though I finally succumbed to my Dad’s policing and got rid of two big one’s in the back there, my dentist having given me local anesthesia and all said it may ‘pain’ a bit. Now don’t get me wrong either this guy has a very bad sense of humour or he has never been in a dentist’s seat and woohaaaaaaaaaaaaah is all I can say. I held on and was being quite a man of it, you know with a couple of ladies in the room couldn’t just yell out with pain. Some where when my dentist was chiseling through my tooth breaking it into ‘3’ pieces before he could ‘extract’ them out I felt the intensity of pain I have never felt before (and pray to God I never do) , the worst part is that I couldn’t just yell out with all that apparatus gagged in my mouth and the ladies of course, but hey man was that painful, you can only experience it to believe it, perhaps some thing like ‘child bearing’ (thank fully I don’t have to go through that,, personally ie). Now as I was saying the ‘tooth’ in being extracted was broken into three pieces, when I heard (felt it more likely) the first one, it kind of reminded me of all my sins, big and small, all the nasty stuff I have done all my life, you know been mean or for that matter just ‘hurt’ people, In fact I was quite sorry for beating up my younger brother when I was 11 and he was 8, hey sorry man, forgive me if you are reading this! . I mean I literally ‘ran over in my head all my sins’ and well thought this was pay back time, God was just giving me my due. To be quite frank, I am not sure what the other two were for and of course the second tooth that came out, It took some good part of an hour and more, for the first half I thought I was just paying my due,, and the second half I am still trying to figure out… is that some thing for the next thirty days of my life.. kind of a ‘prepaid expense’ maybe. Where I sort of need to just amortise it over ever year. Whatever, it was, it was an eye opener and I hope that even my ‘Dentist’ never has to be in a similar position, ever (see I am still benevolent).