दंत कथा ... 
Last week I became a little less wise … 
No no … don’t panic – I am not out of my senses … the thing is that last Thursday I had one of my wisdom teeth extracted. And believe me ... now I totally understand when people say “बाकी कोणतंही दुखणं परवडलं, पण दाताचं दुखणं नको रे बाबा ... !” 
Actually since childhood I have had absolutely no dental problems. I don’t even remember having been to a dentist. I still am (at least till last Thursday was) easily able to break a walnut using my teeth or even open a ketchup bottle seal. My mom takes most credit for this (and probably she deserves it too) because she was responsible for taking care of my teeth when I was too young and also for putting me into the habit of taking good care of them later …
But in the last few months since I started getting wise (read wisdom teeth) … I started feeling something wrong. Within a span of a month I could feel that the alignment of my lower and upper canines has been noticeably disturbed. So I had to do what I had never done till now … see a dentist. 
Till now I had only seen other people in all the pain and felt that DENTist is a guy who causes a DENT to your pocket in spite of causing you some of the worst pain in life 
… But this doc to whom I was referred turned to be a gentleman. He calmly examined the X-ray images of my jaws and concluded that all my wisdom teeth are actually growing at an angle of 45° wrt to other teeth 
… hence the wisdom teeth were pushing the other teeth weirdly causing the misalignment. He said this is a well-known problem being caused due to evolution 
... Are you listening Mr. Darwin. . Nowadays our jaws are growing smaller and smaller, but no. of teeth remians the same. Hence the problem!!! Anyways the bottom-line is I have to get ALL my wisdom (teeth) extracted 
And after all the 4 teeth are extracted I might have to use braces to get the alignment of my teeth back … yaaaaak!
To add fuel to the fire (sorry … fear) it was revealed that the root of my wisdom teeth were firmly rooted in the jaw bones. So it had to be operated upon, the jaw-bone cut and then the teeth could be extracted. Pretty obviously I preferred to go for one tooth at a time.
I kind of remembered all the good (or even fair) deeds I have done and hoped that ALL that पुण्याई would help me here to cause as less pain as possible. Since it was a surgery and the jaw bone had a cut and all 4 stitched had to be put (which I am still carrying BTW). And this nothing less than ACTUAL stitching of clothes … Imagine seeing a needle and thread being put into your mouth and then you feel the worst pricking in life … I mean it is not exactly a very pleasant experience!!! Ya rrrrrite I was under local anesthesia … but I think everyone knows how much does that really help!
I am still moving around with an excruciating pain in the lower jaw (the swelling has almost subsided now) and 4 DAMN STICHES which catch WITHOUT FAIL almost everything I eat like a spider’s web … and cleaning that … Oh my God … even describing that is equally painful … so let me put that into a little rhyme …
लहानपणी शिकवलं गेलं होतं की काही खायच्या आधी “वदनी कवल घेता...” ही प्रार्थना म्हणावी. आज काहीही न खातांना मला ते असं म्हणावंसं वाटतंय ...
वदनी कवळी घेता, नाम घ्या डेंटिस्टाचे ।
सहज स्मरण होते मग आपुल्या दंतांचे ।।
अथक श्रम करोनी नित्य जर घासलेत ।
मोत्यांसम दात होती – डेंटिस्ट सांगतात ।।
नाहीतर root-canal, filling असे धमकवतात ।
अंती यातना देऊनही खिसा हे छेदितात ।।
पण मजसम काही कष्टीही या जगात ।
रोज घासूनही जयांचे दात हे काढतात ।।
स्मरण करोनी त्यांचे फुटे मज घाम फार ।
आत्ता एकच काढलाय ... एकूण आहेत चार ।।
।। जय जय दंतवीर समर्थ ।। 
