This is going to hurt just a little bit!!!

I was forced to visit a dentist thrice in the past one week. And in each one of those long moments that I thrived lying on the dentist's chair with my mouth stretched open for him to peek into and do stuff, the poem 'This is going to hurt just a little bit' by Ogden Nash kept coming into my mind. The humerous poem, which I read in my 10th Standard English Literature textbook, accurately captures the dreadful experience of visiting the dentist, and how inescapable and unavoidable it is, though each time you visit the damn place, you hope that it's your last time. Friends, here's the poem for you. Read and enjoy!

This is going to hurt just a little bit

One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with my mouth wide open.
And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against hope hopen.

Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.
It is hard to be self-possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest,

So hard to retain your calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your life line or love line or some other important line in your palm;

So hard to give your usual effect of cheery benignity
When you know your position is one of the two or three in life most lacking in dignity.

And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on,
And it is all cluttered up with stone crushers and concrete mixers and drills and steam rollers and there isn't a nerve in your head that you aren't being irked on.

Oh, some people are unfortunate enough to be strung up by thumbs,
And others have things done to their gums,
And your teeth are supposed to be being polished,
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.
And the circumstance that adds most to your terror
Is that it's all done with a mirror,
Because the dentist may be a bear, or as the Romans used to say, only they were referring to a feminine bear when they said it, an ursa,
But all the same how can you be sure when he takes his crowbar in one hand and mirror in the other he won't get mixed up, the way you do when you try to tie a bow tie with the aid of a mirror, and forget
that left is right and vice versa?

And then at last he says That will be all; but it isn't because he then coats your mouth from cellar to roof
With something that I suspect is generally used to put a shine on a horse's hoof.

And you totter to your feet and think. Well it's all over now and after all it was only this once.
And he says come back in three monce.
And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou ever sentest, That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good condition
when the chief reason he wants his teeth in good condition is so that he won't have to go to the dentist.

- Ogden Nash

I hope you noticed the pun in the vicious circle. It refers to the circular motion of the dentist's drill and also to the fact that you have to go to the dentist to keep your teeth in a good condition while the main reason you want your teeth in good condition is so that you don't have to go to the dentist. This poem was taught to us by Cherian Sir, and he really enjoyed explaining the Pun. I guess this was his favourite example to explain the figure of speech.

School days were beautiful. I wish I could bring them back. I wish I could be small again. I wish I could again look at everything with the wonder and curiosity filled with the innocence of a child, happy to be lost in atoms, divided by numbers, joined again by the melody of poetry and flown high into the sky into the infinitude of time and space which my little eyes, hands and mind perceived with wonder and amazement.

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Bald is Beautiful!!!

Last weekend I went to a Cosmetic Surgeon to check what it needs to have a hair-transplant, how it is done, how much it costs etc. The doctor unequivocally refused to do my hair-transplant. The reason - The hair-density in my donor area was very poor. The donor area is the area of your body (normally the back of the head, where even baldies usually have some hair) from where the tissue is removed to be implanted on your hairless top. The doctor didn't seem interested in any other donor area. I also didn't bring it up, thinking that he knew better.

He then started telling me how I can cut my hair to look best. I suddenly realized that he was not just a hair-transplant surgeon, but was actually a cosmetic surgeon. His job was not just to grow hair at places where people lost it (usually the head), but also to make people look better. He also did face-lifting and certain other things, besides growing hair. I had gone there to find out the possibility of growing some hair on my head - long, short, noodles, tendrils, curls, whatever - just some damn hair, coz some of my near-and-dear ones have been suggesting getting it done, otherwise no good girl would happily accept getting married to me. It made sense to me too. I'll pass on my genes to my kids, and they'll also lose hair. So I'd be a poor choice for a hubby. Of course transplant does not alter my genes in any way and my kids would be equally vulnerable even if a hair-transplant gets me hair. However it does alter the way the girl would see me while taking a marriage-decision, even if I tell her that the hair on my head has been surgically implanted. It would improve my chances and might encourage the girl the take some risk, as nothing is readily apparent in this case.

If the purpose of our existence is to produce the best progeny, then I might lower down my kids' scores at being the best, unless they inherit my wife's hair. Everything else is pretty fine in me. I am quite immune to diseases, am working on my intelligence (which seems to be improving fast), am sensitive, caring, honest and trustworty, which means that I can take care of my wife and kids better and more reliably. I'm also good in bed and am enormously creative when it comes to sex. I am strongly and strictly against dowry. And as someone said, bald heads are the next stage of evolution coz all futuristic movies have bald characters. So if the current social perception of baldness - which makes a bald person psychologically weak in competing - changes, then chances are that people like me would be the most preferred daddies women would choose for their kids.

The social perceptions about baldness are not likely to change very soon in India. I have seen lots of clean-shaven heads in the US though. And since anything American is seen with awe in India, I have some reason to be optimistic.

However, if things don't change, and my kids have poor donor areas too, there are other good and even better options which will come up in future. The Stem-Cell research has been quite successful and gives a lot of hope. It will make it possible to generate tissues of required density from donor areas with scanty hair. It's an amazing technology and will certainly open up newer, far-reaching and revolutionary ways of making our lives better. There are a lot of social and religious impediments to its surge forward, but I am sure they'll all be overcome, given its immense potential.

Therefore, with so many options - hair-transplant, Stem Cells, etc. I think even the worst case scenario is not too bad. 20 years back, even girls with spects had a hard time getting a good husband. Now, spects isn't a matter at all. Just like contact lenses, and laser therapy - which can help you get rid of glasses forever, hair-transplant and related techniques are very much within reach of the common man. Hair-transplant costs Rs.40,000-50,000 ($1000-1250) in India, which is almost the cost of an average two-wheeler and is permanent and reliable too. I personally don't really think one must give so much importance to looks, but a lot is hard-wired inside us and we do tend to get affected and also affect others when we get opportunities. For those of us at the receiving end, some of us get used to it, some of us compromise, some of us learn to overcome all the pain it causes and learn to be happy with what we have got, and some of us don't get affected at all. The last category are real insensitive maniacs, and must be rare.

Having said that, I should nonetheless add that quite a few girls of my age and younger have told me that I look good with the fully shaven head - the great Indian Takla - I've sported since 23-July-07. That may or may not be a genuine compliment, but I surely feel more comfortable with a clean-shaven head. For one, I don't have to carry a comb all the time, and keep combing once every half hour. I also don't need to worry about my hair-style and about whether the patches of scanty hair are visible. I don't need to align my head this way or that to show or hide the good or bad parts of my head. I also feel more cool and confident. Who needs the dead matter on top anyway! It serves no purpose. I think that's a logical reason why it will be lost as the next step of our evolution. The new mantra for me - Bald is Beautiful!!!