Swollen Stitched Shut

i had some issues..well i have loads actually, but right now i am speaking specifically about some dental issues. i was diagnosed, a few months ago, with having way too much wisdom. for the benefit of those who missed that incredibly important happening in the world history, here's the link of that woeful discovery. with time and against well wishers' advice i reconciled myself to getting cut n stitched up, and give up half of my hard earned, hard acquired wisdom. so a few days ago, with all my courage and my little remaining bank balance, i marched into the dentist's office and declared i was ready to be slaughtered...err have my teeth taken out.

"lie down, close you eyes and relax....tell me if it hurts"...sighh..and how i had waited to hear these words all my life. right now the only picture that came to my mind was the printed text of Ogden Nash's dentist poem, "this is going to hurt just a little bit".....

"ouch! it hurt a lot already!" ...

have u ever had local anaesthesia shots? they're like tiny little pricks, only they are much sharper. and many of them. after 2-3 shots, my dentist made his move and i felt a long thick rock hard instrument sliding in...it was a steel dentist surgical instrument to extract teeth, what did you think you rotten mind!!

"e ill -ut" I babbled
"What ?? "
"it still hurts" I said, as he removed that steel holder. it looked like a screw driver and that did nothing to assuage my terror.

i was given 2 more anaesthesia shots, stronger this time, i felt a numbness engulfing my face. the dentist resumed. well to be honest it still hurt. the damn anaesthesia was still not working. at least not fully. i have always known myself to be perceptive, but there are healthy limits to everything you know!

anyways, i really wanted it to get over with as quickly as possible and so taking inspiration from an elder brother who had once narrated a story about getting a war wound stitched up without anaesthesia, i just closed my eyes and decided to let the surgery proceed.

i could hear the dentist making small talk to his team, " shouldn't he be focusing on me right now...and he isn't even asking for forceps like they always do on TV".. concerned i opened my eyes and I saw two i gloved hands, holding a screwdriver and knife kind of thing, covered in blood. my blood.

now i consider myself reasonably brave, but at that sight movie scenes of cold blodded murders flashed through my not-under-aneasthesia head and i shut my eyes again. as tight as i could. and tried promised God to never ask for anything ever again, as long as I came out of this alive and with enough blood in my body to not need a transfusion that could give me aids...i knew i was over reacting. and i told myself so. and tried to calm down.

i was doing a decent job, till i heard a sound. the sound of a drill. and it came nearer. i could picture the tree cutting drill swaying close to my lips, the dentist looking at some way of shoving it in and cutting my teeth off. i couldn't bring myself to open my eyes, lest the drill cut off my lashes.....i dont remember being this scared in a really long time. nor do i remember praying this hard.

and then wen i cudn't resist nemore i opened my eyes, and saw a pen sized thing making that sound. phew!! but you would think they can attach a mute button to such a tiny thing wouldnt you?! and just as this was over i started feeling the thread actually going in and out where i was being stitched up. the good news: i knew it was almost over. the bad: i could feel every single millimeter of it. urrghh. for once i wished that damn anae had worked.

on second thoughts though..now i know wat a cloth must feel like being stitched up. another feather to my perceptiveness cap. not sure what to do with this though..apologize to my skirt next time i sow a fallen hem???

as i was leaving i happened to look into the mirror. still shaken with the drills n trying to shrug off the feeling of the stitches, i remmeber messaging my friends that i could play a 2 faced ravan without make up. yes my face was that swollen up.

well its been a couple of days, my lopsided face is almost back to normal, i can talk again and had my first proper meal in 3 days. laughing would still take some more healing but i have developed a new found respect n understanding of Ogden Nash...and his poem "this is going to hurt just a little bit"...

oh and in case u r wondering, the title is just keeping in line with the earlier post on the subject, the tooth tragedy , and in line with marketing's obsession with same letter abbreviations... the 3 S's ;)

"When some one asks 'how are you?' dont start off with your life's problems. it s a conversation starter and people are not really bothered about your problems"... said something i once read on how to be popular or something to that effect. Well yes, a stranger or a casual acquaintance starts a conversation, we all put up a happy face and make small talk. whether its your neighbor's divorce or the global financial crisis..its all just about making conversation. most of the times at least. and this does make most of us, good conversationalists. help us develop good people skills.

and then we try to improve those skills. so we smile harder. and make more small talk about more important issues. and then, somewhere along the line we get into the habit. of smiling. and making small talk.

if something bothers us, retreat into a corner, take a few deep breaths, men smoke, women dab-on more make up [ and smoke ] and smile. we go out and act according to our habits. we smile.

"its not apt to discuss my family problems at work" , "she will just judge me if i tell her this", "its none of his business..he doesnt really care", "she wont understand..she'll just over react n get hurt".."i cant tell this to anyone" and many more such sentences run through our heads and we train ourselves to hide our tears, our pain, our problems and keep moving on with life. with a brave face and a sparkling, charming smile. good people skills. and thats how the world sees us. happy, successful, rising, intelligent young executives or models or name who you will.

soon, our colleagues, friends and family start falling into the same set. outside the circle of our feelings. and we start getting lonelier and lonelier. avoiding calling our friends when we're upset, a contrast from the school days wen we wud run to them at every possible occassion...an even bigger contrast from wen running to mom for crying made everything all right. in this exponential growth curve, we stop giving ourselves time to deal with our emotions. and the worst affected of these, is pain. we just refuse to deal with it. its just a waste of time when there's so much to be done.

why is it easier to blog our innermost thoughts on the net than sharing our problems with our closest friends. are we scared of being judged? perhaps. scared of losing / hurting our friends? possibly. why has anonymity become more comforting than the arms of a loved one?

most of all i think its our obsession with meeting everyone's expectations. everyone wants us to be happy, expects us to be happy, and we oblige. its just so much easier than breaking everyone's perceptions and asking them, as well as ourselves, to face reality. the moment something happens everyone asks u to look at the bright side and move on. why can't we just stop for sometime and grieve. because its easier to pretend that pain doesn't exist.

a drag is easier than having to deal with tears. and pain. besides, it helps you network doesnt it?! helps you climb the next rung. and as we busy ourselves climbing the ladder, something inside us keeps worsening. bottled up pain that never got the treatment it needed. a good heart's crying. a night getting sloshed up with friends. a grieving period. the running to mom/dad to cry in her/his arms. the feeling "safe". protected. loved.

and then, one day some one famous and successful kills themselves. we read the morning paper and wonder why.."she had evthg going for her....wonder what could have been so terribly wrong"...and with that one statement we get back to running for our lives. we don't stop for a moment and listen to that voice in our heads that tells us "stay. dont move. you are hurt too. give me some time and I will make it allright". we are too worried we might miss the next opportunity to climb the ladder.

the ladder to loneliness and false perceptions. perceptions of ever cheerful successful smiling faces. perceptions of happiness. the ladder to emptiness.

they say that the first impressions last forever. nowhere it holds true-er for me, personally, than, when it comes to music. I am generally a music lover, not really a fanatic, with no hard bound limits n preferences. this makes me open to experimenting with different kinds of music, and in that i think i have been blessed with friends who have varied interests in music, and manage to get me started from the very best of songs. i remember my introduction to english music was, very characteristically of average middle class homes those times, Mtv, and backstreet boys. but the first song i ever really loved, after a giggly doe-eyed "britney" phase ofcourse, was Breaking my heart again - MLTR. then came Lets make a night to remember- Bryan adams, and though i loved " have you ever really loved a woman" for obviously feminist reasons [ men who claim not to understand women--listen to that song..] , the former still reigned in preference.

the first rock song i ever heard, of any kind, was Time machine, courtesy ankit. one of my best friends, now for many years. in a phase when i was sick of love songs..no i wasn't recently heart broken, i was beginnin to realise wat an over rated emotion love is and was just fed up of lovey dovey songs.. or as ankit put it, i was turning into a hard core "you MCP" feminist. i remember those days when he would force me to sit next to him and listen to weird rock, just bcoz he was too bored to be sitting and working alone till late night. i remember the first song that really "got to me" [in ankit's words] was "the man who sold the world". well some good came out of those days..i found what an excellent stress buster rock can be, especially punk rock. ofcourse my supply was limited to the songs on his machine only, but i soon had them on mine and they started acting as my anger management when i was too stressed out and wanted to scream [errm..yes that did happen at work, even at home, at times...]

and then came songs from parag and chander, ranging from Daimen Rice to Immaculate dream & as deserts miss the rain. even saawariya and avdhoot gupte. soulful to haunting to peppy, and yes lovey dovey too, [ thankfully by now i over that phase, though i still think love is an extremely over rated emotion but that another story ].

the latest addition to my list of successful experiments... white rabbit - grace slick. psychedellic rock. again, an excellent start from abhishek, a friend from so long that I've lost count. of the number of years....from the puppy love of the archies, abba and the corrs [all of which i still love btw ] to jefferson airplane and RATM, things that "gets to me" , my collection is as varied as the interests of my friends. and am I thankful for that!! soon, hopefully, i'll have a song for every mood of mine [ many more of those are still waiting for the right music to hit them ;) ] and ofcourse the endless hindi music of every age and time and genre from the ancient navratan to the latest fashion, the punjabi bhangra to the sufi music...[credit for most of which goes to my kid sister], its all there. and dont forget a bit of jagjit singh here n there as well [thats thanks to my ex colleagues at my last company ] oh and how can i forget all the devotional music " to help me stay calm under pressure" courtesy my mother [somehow they always know, whether you tell them anything or not..they have these sensors..they just know.]

why did i write this up and decide to announce my playlist to the whole world on a spur of the moment, when writing, even for fun, is something i tend to take somewhat seriously, surely not to flaunt my music collection its zilch compared to each of my friends', individually! .....not too sure, must be the white rabbit doing its work!! and perhaps my latest discovery that sadly enough my writing capacity ha gone way down vis-a-vis my typing stamina and the thought of writing my diary tires my hand out.

but i guess mostly just to thank my friends for being there [not that any of them would ever read this if i held a gun to their heads..i am enough to handle even without having to go through this additional pain! ] . but just to thank them for bearing with me through all my numerous moods n temperaments, and assuaging me with the right kind of music when they can't do it alone :)

thanks guys...at the risk of sounding "filmy" ..."wen u smile for me the world seems all right" ... :)

here's my latest addiction... white rabbit

purpose of life

there r 3 kinds of ppl that i've come across so far.

those who ask "why am i here", go through various stages of confusion and eventually realize at the end of it that there is no answer to this question. so next they ask themselves "ok then what is it that i would prefer as the purpose to be? what is it that i think will give meaning to my life and help me feel that i didn't waste this life when i die" and choose the path they want to follow.

those who ask "why am i here" , eventually realise that there is no answer and decide to let go of the matter.

and then there are those to whom the question never occurs.

from whatever little i have read, there are 2 generic theories that i know of so far. One says u r borne with a pre destined purpose n ur experiences in life all go towards preparing u for ur final calling in this life, which is again preparation for ur soul to move to the next plane for ur next life, and ultimately to nirvana.

the other says the future is cause n effect. we define our own purpose, we shape our lives. and its our subconscious learnings that do so.

these 2 theories converge somewhat wen both say its upto each individual soul how much a she wants to experience and explore. They equate subconscious with soul and say that its far more powerful. They also agree that while all human beings are equal in their true potential, they only differ in the realization of that potential. And that most people get caught in daily illusions of life n lose sight of the bigger picture.

i personally dont have strong opinions on re incarnation. and with destiny and our control, I stand somewhere in between. i feel there r always 3 elements in the circle of life... circumstances [Destiny / previous actions ] -> actions-> results [circumstances for next action ]

out of these, only actions are in our hands. and since we don't remember any other life, past or future, we only know what we are and what things r in this one life.

I also believe that everything happens for a reason whether u call it God, destiny, or something else. And if we look carefully almost certainly we will find that reason most of the times. At least in the hindsight. Every person we cm across, has a role to play, a purpose to serve in our lives.

so everything has a reason. & every person has a purpose to serve in our lives. then how can we be born without a reason or purpose. we're not. we have a purpose. each one of us. i also feel that because we never know the big picture, we never know why we re here we end up misinterpreting God's intentions.

so there is an answer to "why we're here" ... just that we wont know until the answer chooses to reveal itself. even if it means something as seemingly normal as sacrificing our careers to raise our children who will become bigger than we are, someday.

and that's what most people do. consciously or not, they decide upon their purpose of life, like raising children or keeping their parents happy and stay with it. and that's fine too. if they have any other purpose than that they get called to it wen the time comes.

so whether we are born with a pre-destined purpose which calls us someday, or we shape it through our actions everyday...that doesn't matter. what matters is whether when the time comes can we rise to the occasion and answer the call of duty. and that till then, we live each moment to the fullest. making the difference we want to make..doing things that make us happy and don't harm others, ... so that if we were to die the next instant, we wouldn't regret having wasted the moment just gone.