Dude Where's My Tooth

Blame it on Lawrence Olivier. The lordly British thespian bears the brunt of responsibility for my allergy to dentists.
Remember a movie called The Marathon Man? If you've seen it you would remember a scene in which Olivier playing a Nazi dentist wreaks havoc on poor Dustin Hoffman's teeth. Not that Olivier's character, a concentration camp dentist with the sinister teutonic name of Kaspar Szell, was bad in his job. He was chillingly professional when it came to causing toothaches to good guys.
The movie which I saw at the impressionable age of 12, left a lifelong fear of anyone I remotely suspected of trying to have something to do with my teeth. Further trysts with Hollywood didn't make things any better. The scene in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much in which the hero narrowly escapes a villainous dentist with all his teeth intact after anaesthetizing the baddie, strengthened my suspicions about the diabolical nature of the men armed with tongs, waiting just to deprive me of my precious teeth.
Strangely, Bollywood dream merchants who lift Hollywood films shot by shot have not made a movie about the big, bad teeth pullers. There have been politicians, lawyers, cops and yes even physicians in the Bollywood baddie roster but dentists, never. Why? Are the Bollywood badshahs as scared of them as I that they don't want to rub them the wrong way?
That would be a pity. Imagine what great fun it would have been to watch Messrs. Amrish Puri, Prem Chopra or Gulshan Grover leaning over helpless good guys (or girls) in the dentist's chair and firing pages and pages of dialogues at them declaring their evil intentions. I am still eagerly waiting to hear a sneering Hindi film baddie mouthing a line like “Kameene main tera daanth nikaal doonga.” (Creep. I'll pull out your teeth).
This is where I miss the good old K.N. Singh. He wouldn't have even needed dialogues. A slight upward movement of those woolly eyebrows and a pout were all he would have required to reveal his diabolical schemes for your oral cavities.
Forget the reel life. My sole real life tryst with dentists in my teens did not reassure me they were not Kaspar Szell clones. Not that I allowed any of them to touch my teeth but I had to accompany my uncle who was shaking all over with terror at the very idea of visiting a dentist and groaning miserably because of a toothache.
“Shouldn't we turn back?” he kept asking me all along the way to the clinic. I played upon his ex-serviceman's ego to ensure that he didn't beat a retreat. “A true soldier never turns back in the face of the enemy,” I told him. “He either wins or perishes in the attempt.”
Within seconds of making the remark I realized that uncle was feeling that only the second option was open to him. I had to virtually drag him up the stairs to the clinic run by two dentists. One of them, a thin guy who looked not much older than me made my uncle sit in the dentist's chair and as soon as he took his hand near uncle's mouth my kinsman let out a chilling howl.
The poor dentist dropped some instrument he was holding and pearls of sweat formed on his brow. “Wha…what's wrong with him? Why is he making such a noise?” he asked nervously.
My ex-soldier uncle realized that his missile had hit the target and continued ululating. “Pl…please ask him to stop. Tt...tell him I'm not going to hurt him,” said the poor, stuttering teeth puller. As I turned to uncle, I could see the shadow of a smile on his face. He was winning the battle and the enemy was retreating..
“Uncle, the doctor says he isn't going to hurt you,” I said. “Ayyyyo!” he screamed in response bringing a bit of variety to his sound bytes. “Could you pl...please wait outside? I'll call you after some time. Just relax for sometime will you?” the doctor told uncle. It seemed as if the doc needed to relax more than my uncle.
Uncle triumphantly walked back into the waiting room and I felt a bit of sympathy for the tribe of dentists who had to handle tricky customers like him. Going back into the dentist's room to get my pair of goggles I had left there I found him reading a book on werewolves. Was that what made him nervous about my uncle's howls? I didn't ask him.
Meanwhile the other dentist had summoned my uncle into his cabin. (I suspect it was a tactical move by the enemy to trounce the old soldier. The nervous fellow who tried to handle my uncle first must have talked to his colleague to take care of the troublesome patient).
Soon the entire clinic was filled with fearsome screams followed by a deathly silence. I walked into the room where my uncle was performing some kind of dance in the dentist's chair to the accompaniment of groans and grunts. The dentist was triumphantly holding something small and red with a pair of pincers. “Aaagh! My tooth,” screamed my relative as if to explain what the thing was.
There was a fiendish smile on the dentist's face. Years later, when I came across some nightclub bouncers, I remembered my uncle's nemesis, Dr. Bal Krishan Sharma. They looked just like him. The little sympathy I felt for dentists after my uncle had terrorized Dr. Sharma's colleague with howls now evaporated.
“All this torture and you have to pay for it too,” uncle wailed on the way home. His accusing look revealed his feelings. He suspected me of aiding and abetting the dentist. Dude, where's my tooth, asked his sad eyes. That was his first and last visit to a dentist. Over the years he let his teeth rot and fall off but wouldn't hear the word dentist.
Dr. Sharma rose and prospered in his calling, representing India at several international congresses on dentistry. I later learnt that his jittery colleague had quit the profession, switched over to selling fake antique furniture and lived happily ever after with his conscience untroubled by someone's lost molars, incisors and canines.
The allergy inspired by Lawrence Olivier and Dr. Sharma still persists. I accompany my wife to the dentist's but refuse to step beyond the waiting room where I sit leafing through the pages of film (read gossip) magazines ogling at pictures of starlets whose economizing on clothes was enough to cause a major crisis in the Indian textile industry.
My wife keeps on trying to persuade me to visit her dentist. She says everyone should have a date with dentists once in three months to get their teeth cleaned. Apparently dentists can go where no toothbrush has ever gone before. If my uncle had heard that, he would have had a heart attack.
I fear the dentist would do something much worse than cleaning my teeth. Ho varlet! Thy hands off my root canal! I prefer to leave my teeth in the hands of fate. Let God be my dentist.

Dear Balajee,

You have written very humorously about the toothache and the encounter with the dentists. You have talent and keep posting more. But do please visit the dentists for normal visits!

Hello Balajee
This is my first Fb to u
People fear dentist too much. But do you know about the
smart wife who walked to the dentist chamber - said - Look I am in a very big hurry so I don't want any fuss, any anesthesia or pain killer just pull out the tooth like that ,Dentist was quite impressed & said- vow u are quite a brave lady, show me which tooth I have to remove. The lady turned to her husband & said dear show him your pain ful tooth .
Ha Ha Ha .
Regards
Jaishree

ha..ha..ha.....................

Sorry it is bad to laugh so hard and loud until tears came, when some one is suffering from tooth pain! But culprit is not me - you did it - with your humerous writing. Thank God I am at home, I would have killed my colleague with a heart condition if I were to read this at work!

Haha, wives are a sadistic bunch aren't they?

Dear Balajee,

The Dentist's Association has decided to sue u,for defaming them, and making them lose their quota of money and teeth.with friends like u,dentists dont need enemies.Great one man, im laughing.

I have always visitied the dentists all mylife and thsi time, i had a 5 hour continous treatmetn which exhausted me no end.The next one was 3 hours.and now again i am going to mumbai for dentl treatment, but mom's fishes make up for it.HAHA.

Regards.kamal

Dear Venonimiss,

You should have read it in the office. That way you would have relieved that guy of heart trouble and any other kind of trouble!

Usha, all visits to dentists are abnormal!

Dear Balajee,
That was a wonderful write up in easy flowing,flawless English.Iread it at one go.Simply loved it.
Iam always afraid of the dentist's chair what with all the equipments.But there is one thing I want to tell you,you observe any dentist they come across as friendly next door neighbours and they chat and chat so that the patient relaxes a little atleast.
Dentists invariably ask you to go in for root canal.It is terrifying to say the least,I hope no dentist would come and fght with me.
All the best
mithila kannan

Dear Balajee,

That was hilarious!

To connect Lawrence Olivier with dentist needs some flight of fantasy! And you seem to have plenty of it.

The last line was the crowning glory of this entire funny episode. I was laughing throughout and I had to struggle with my aching tummy towards the end.

All this laugh and yet I managed to feel the excruciating pain too......thanks (or no thanks) to your writing skills.

Keep them coming Balajee and you will keep coming in the FP forums too, as nominations will naturally follow.

Congrats for making it to the FP.

L, Kamla