The Canine Factor!

Ever read the poem 'This is going to hurt just a little bit' by Ogden Nash? Anyone who did their 10th Std under a CBSE board would definitely remember. Personally, i found it very very funny at that point of time.Especially that little 'pun' at the end that my English teacher used to keep pointing out. But now, i realise how true Mr.Nash's words are...Dentists!Even though i visit that clinic so frequently, the tickle down my spine when i sit on that flexi chair with a million buttons to press just doesn't change or vanish!! Well....Its a long story.

"Clippu potundu irrukeya?" (oh u're wearing 'clips'aah?).Can't somebody just use the word BRACES? what's it there for? Oh my, I'm TIRED to my bones listening to that question. But
all i do is just smile... kind of symbolically telling people 'can't you see for yourself?'Restraining myself from screaming. Can't blame them though...they wouldn't know how it feels like to try closing your mouth after your teeth are freshly 'wired', sort of like forcing your lower lip higher and higher so that it touches your upper lip and covers your teeth within with much difficulty, but u realise that if u DO close your mouth, it pricks your inner lip, and your cheek muscles, wanting you to leave your mouth permanently open like aaaaaaaaa!! or in a eeeee position! Just that it would leave u looking like a vampire with smiling eyes...the mouth trying hard to smile (when its closed)!

The easiest way to lose weight without being on a diet, or working out, is wearing braces! My dentist told me that the first time i met him ( but that was way back then...nowadays, he's boring.Nothing funny... just "your next appointment will be on ..blah"). Well, that did turn out to be true for the first few months...but i guess it wears offff!! NOt any more!! One thing about wearing braces is that you are not supposed to use your front teeth to bite ANYTHING...yes, however soft! Ofcourse, unless you don't mind a terrible ache in your mousy incisors...! So, if u have to eat a banana or an apple, u have 2 options -

a) You could slice it up and use your back teeth to bite ( which is a very boring thing
to do u know...Get knife, peel, cut...neah!) OR
b) Force the whole fruit into the insides of your mouth by opening it wide
and..BITE!(with your back teeth obviously..).

I prefer the second option...simply cuz it makes me feel like i've achieved something!Disgusting though it may sound! But...it may leave you with a tooth ache for over a day...but i guess its worth the laziness...gettin a knife n doing the blah....! Now you're not supposed to use your front teeth, right? It turns out, u're not supposed to use your back teeth either....umm, for a few things.Which would mean that these food stuffs are literally out of the scope of your diet for the 1 or 1.5 years that the sacred wire clings to your teeth, as if your white ( or off-white or yellow), odd-shaped (or square?) structures are the most important of things to them in the whole, wide, wasted world and their main purpose is to make sure your teeth don't run away further from your jaw, or fall out of line! And under this lousy list of goodies comes something we southies call 'murukku'....damn it hasn't touched my tongue for 5 months! Basically, anything thats hard, n has the probability of breaking your brackett ( the small, square metal thing that holds the wire) is not advisable. They're not advisable, so who said we can't eat them? Unless the dentists are jobless enough or rich enough to hire goons! (actually, they do get richer... Mine got new name boards all over the place...beginning n ending of my street, new bright blue one outside his place...even these damn rains couldn't bend the board! damn!) We still eat them...but hell,the brackett breaks. And this inititates a chain of events that u'd rather avoid - Starting from u directing your tongue towards n rubbing it on the 'tooth with the missing brackett', n feeling how rough the cement has made it, and how yellow and dirty, n u having to call up the dentist and
give him/her the good news, to him/her giving u a disappointed/disgusted/'why the hell can't u be more careful' reply, n u going back to the dentist to get it fixed, n him/her putting more cement on your already rough tooth ( cement which he grinds with a mortar and pestle which makes u think of the fish/goat-liver u'd ground for biochemistrypracticals), n then him/her removing the whole goddam wire cuz the whole thing has to be re-done, and all this time, you'll be sitting with your mouth in the aaaaaa position (wanting desperately to catch hold of the gloved hand and bite it), and then he'll tell you to bite, and u'll come to the eeee postion (biting nothing but your own teeth..). Then he'll turn to his assistant and say "its still in open bite, isn't it?" or some kinda crap like that just to discourage you or to show you that he knows something you don't... So, my point is - why eat 'murukku' afer all?

The next thing is the rubber bands...that come in various colours n sizes....they're cute, but hell i'd rather have them on a package than on my teeth! Dentists usually ask u which colour u want ( mine was a total pig and just put on a dark blue one without asking.. :-(.... n they became pale blue by the time i went to him again, and the one in the lower jaw actually snapped! haha) , n then they attach it to your bracketts. These rubber bands are supposed to PULL your teeth inward....but all they seem to do is get
themselves deposited with all the food suffs that pass through the passage-way called the
mouth, n just resist the removal of these particles from their midst! Highly irritating!
There was a time when the 'indian flag' was a very fashinable rubber-band type... I
don't think they make it anymore... :-(...spoilt my chance to exhibit patriotism! But
Quite frankly, i think the whole procedure's very mechanical. I have hence come to the
conclusion that dentists, in their own way are just mechanics...even the tools they use
resemble cutting pliers n hammers! What the hell!

These are just a few aspects of wearing braces...there are more, but i'll stop writing
more for 2 reasons.... a) i think am boring u to death and b) i have an exam tomorrow!
But before signing off, i'd like to say something. First, a big "YOU ROCK, THANKS SO
MUCH" to my friends Nidhee and Shruti and to my Prof Ms. Priya. Wondering why? Well, they
all got braces after i did! So we're braces buddies...n when we run out of topics to chat
abt, u know wat we discuss! Yes, even with my prof! Second, another friend of mine -
Nikhil - said that he thinks braces look cute ( obviously, only on particular people).
But hell nik, if one guy can think that way, they're definitely more! Thanx! And third -
Anu - i remember how she reacted when i first told her abt the braces...she was the first
person who totally understood! And we were braces buddies till she got hers off recently,
and Anu, u look lovely! And fourth and last- I'd like to thank 2 of my college friends -
Rekha and Sandhya. Reks - Thanx so much for checking my teeth for 'particles that love
lingering around and resist the flow of water' after every lunch hour!U're really patient
with me! And Sand - Thanx for taking all the cribbing i do over the phone, and laughing
at all the stupid rubber-band pics i send u!
Thats all for now...


Signing off....

PS: The title has canine in it cuz i got 4 molars (YES 4) extracted for this process,
which left my canines to take the centre stage n look all prominent..dracula!!