A toothy tale

“How far can you go If you’re not Rimbaud How much do you dare If you’re not Baudelaire Contemplate time In its grip be calm Drink a toast to Omar Khayyam” From

Fatty Ravi the Kavi

by

Bachchoo

The single tooth implant I have in my mouth, installed fifteen years ago by a Russian émigré dentist in a seedy Victorian clinic in Harley Street, fell out yesterday. I was chewing on chicken — I stopped doing chewing and bubble gum in the 1960s in protest against America’s war in Vietnam. I contemplated the fallen implant, in this case a pointed vampiric one with a little metal cylinder, much like the .077 slugs which were the air gun ammunition of misspent youth. Feeling upwards I found the protruding spike around which this cylinder had been encased and even without the benefit of a mirror I pushed the tooth back onto it. It fitted like a correctly-sized glove on a hand, and the move had more of the satisfaction one gets from inserting a jigsaw piece into an exact circumambient cavity. However satisfying this replacement, I knew that the next bite on the chicken leg would bring the wretched tooth out in my mouthful and then I’d have to search through the chewed mush to find the bit that had confronted my teeth, as shockingly as a Mumbai road pothole jarring a motorcycle tyre. I was in a restaurant in Italy in the company of friends I had known for years, but felt it best not to bring this trifling emergency to their notice. I popped the transplant tooth into the zipped coin pocket of my wallet and kept a straight face. I had taken the precaution of buying medical insurance for my brief sojourn in Europe, because the website I used to buy the ticket offered me a cheap choice. I had no idea whether this covered dental emergencies and, since the place where we were staying for our last night in the country had no access to the Internet or indeed properly to the mobile telephonic network, I had no way or time to find out. No. I would keep the tooth till I got back to London and take the problem to my dentist. It’s what I did. I don’t know about other megalopolii in Britain, but in London the dentists operate in gangs, much like the Chinese Triads and totally unlike the individual Russian implant specialist who installed the errant tooth or indeed unlike the gracious Ms Sewani of Lokhandwala who deals with my teeth in her solo clinic when I am in Mumbai. For a whole night I contemplated looking in the toolbox under the stairs for the superglue whose packaging boasted that it could stick anything to anything. There were no warnings on the packaging as there are on some creams and concoctions which say- “for external use only”. Perhaps it had never occurred to the manufacturers of this stick-anything miracle that some individual in toothy distress would contemplate sticking a bit of their product into the purlieu of his gums. They saw no need to warn the public off from swallowing it, just as the manufacturers of motorcar tyres don’t issue warnings about turning their product into a stew and consuming it. Thinking thus, I came to the conclusion that it was an absurd idea and rather than poison myself, I would have to seek professional help in the morning. So I walked into the dental practice which I frequent (“use” would be more accurate, after all it’s not my local pub) not knowing which dentist would deal with my small problem of replacement. The “practice” has several dentists but till those in trouble phone or get there they can never be certain of getting attended to at all. In this particular instance I was almost instantly summoned, placed in the reclining chair and dealt with. In the reception area I had to fill in a form and pay £18 which is about '1,548 at the current rate, a sum for which I can buy four bottles of cheap but decent wine, or one bottle of vintage stuff. But that’s not what gave me the most pause. The young lady dentist who did this sterling job of sticking back my tooth tested the rest of them by knocking them with a little mallet. She said I had a broken bridge and she wouldn’t recommend fixing it or replacing it because it would undoubtedly break again being of a certain untenable length in the back of my mouth. She said I’d better think of another implant. I said I had thought of an implant but there were two factors against it. The first was that each implant would cost £3,000, which is about two-and-a- half-lakh of rupees. I won’t calculate how many bottles of wine etc. I could equip myself with but will say that it’s a lot of dosh. And then of course an expert whom Ms Sewani summoned in Mumbai to examine my jaws opined that the bottom ones were too shallow to accept transplants. “I see. Then the solution is dentures,” said my young dentist and smiled benignly. I had the instant and insistent feeling of this young and vibrant spirit telling the aged decrepit the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth with all the kindness she could muster. I walked home thinking it’s only a bloody loose implant re-stuck, how dare she treat it as a marker for the onset of dotage Then memory recurred. When my friends and I were young, hanging around the streets of Pune, we would tease bald men who passed by shouting “karom board” at them, mocking their shiny plates. I was told to refrain from chewing on anything for two hours till the cement set, but I determined to go and examine my scalp very carefully for an assessment of how karom-boardish I have myself become.