Big Mouths do help

It was some fifty years ago.  Our neighbour, a normally benign individual had virtually turned malignant in sleep as if some vampire had mysteriously infected him and was furiously gesticulating and shouting at his aged mother, of all people! The provocation for his angst had come from the chattering old lady having divulged some closely held family secret to a rather meddlesome relative, thereby inadvertently causing hindrance in a land deal.  The one stand-out declamatory phrase repeatedly employed by the neighbour was `you-and-your-big-mouth'.  Readers would have surely heard this often at school (teachers reprimanding talkative students) or closer at home (elders admonishing precocious children talking beyond their age). The strong, negative connotations attached to the `Big Mouth' (BM) could not have been missed.  So, without belabouring the point further, we can conclude by consensus that there is a severe antipathy and stigma attached to BM.  Come to think of it, there is no recorded eulogy or appreciation of BM in literary works in a couple of languages this scribe has marginal capabilities in.  This serious attempt is to address that deficit, rectify a historical omission, redeem a bit of ground for BM and save it from complete condemnation.

Switch to two weeks ago.  I was sweating profusely inside the air-conditioned car and was highly conscious of generating incoherent and asinine prattle, in an utterly nervous state.  My wife was making valiant attempts to calm me down, but in vain.  Over the years, she had learned that on such trips I just flip out to be reduced to gooey jelly and there is no known remedy for that.  When we reach this specific destination, I usually behave like an exceptionally rebellious mule which resents being goaded into heading in a particularly undesirable direction. I put up the same pathetic show this time too.  My wife adroitly used her teacher-like stern demeanour (this she manages with a smiling face - don't ask me how - and she has a band of admirers who wonder how she is cool and is ever-smiling!) as well as the 'dont-embarrass-me-type' hissed-out instructions to cajole me into the ante-room of our .....er.....dentist!  I felt completely trapped and hopelessly hemmed in since I was flanked by the only two people in the world who I am mortally afraid of - the dentist inside the clinic and the wife, languidly guarding the only exit.

The intelligent and perceptive among the readers must have already deciphered my intense dislike for dentist's clinics.  I must record for now and posterity - or else I would be guilty of doing grave injustice -  that my dentist is an endearing lady, a gentle soul, a confirmed wheedler who can coax a hungry robin to yield that half-eaten worm and a skilled operator when it comes to teeth!  As a process, she eases you into the recliner, she chats nicely and lulls you into believing that you are the chosen one, about to be fed some devilishly tasty ice-cream.  Once you are down, the scene changes swiftly and alarmingly; three more otherwise absolutely normal ladies emerge from the wood-works to assume forbidding postures around you.  One thrusts a glass of water in your face to rinse your mouth; one holds a suction pump to remove excess saliva and water and one carries a contraption used to widen unwilling mouths to the fullest.  This is the moment the dentist chooses to hide her face behind a menacing mask, switches on the overhead light, which makes your eyes water (thankfully that merges with the flow of fear-induced-tears!) and picks up the cursed drill which makes that confoundedly screeching noise as it grates on your teeth. Now, the metamorphosis in her is complete.  As for me, at this stage my muscles automatically stiffen, my breathing gets heavy and I feel like a bleating lamb at the last stop inside an abattoir!

Then the dentist calls the assemblage to order, commences the proceedings and seeks further widening of the mouth.  When she realises I cannot expand that orifice any further despite best efforts due to limitations imposed at the time of creation, she says in a rather defeated and resigned way `Oh, your mouth is so small.  I wish it were bigger'!!  Here is someone asking for a BM, after all, even though it is to facilitate her in plying her trade.  You see, a dentist has to combine the skills of an expert digger, deft chiseller, careful filler and good finisher.  She has to perform all the complicated and intricate tasks in the rather confined space, which usually accommodates a couple of morsels of food at a time.  As such, in order to get the satisfaction of a job well done, the least a good dentist expects is a reasonably big mouth.  When you confront her with a smaller-than-the-desired-size mouth, she has a right to feel cheated because she has been given less than the minimum required base material for her to earn a livelihood and that is disappointing, to say the least.  Hence a dentist's yearning for a BM!  But my dentist, the smart woman she is, saw an opportunity even in the adversity of having to work on me and once brought in her apprentices/interns to show how it is done when the desirable size is not available.

Typically, even for something as simple as a cavity-filling, while the dentist herself drills inside the mouth (I invariably imagine myself to be a piece of marble being cut), there is an accompanying requirement of some spray to cool the temperature (the analogy with marble being cut gets stronger).  Or even as the drill goes shrieking inside, there is a need for the suction pump to take out the extra supply of saliva (is this a by-product of the high anxiety level?) or water from one side. So, at any time, there are at least two contraptions simultaneously inside the mouth.  If the mouth is too small for the comfort of the team of crafts-women, something like a solid plastic block is inserted to keep it open to a desired level - the dentist assures me this is to lessen the strain in keeping the mouth open for long as required - even if the owner of the mouth is an absolutely reluctant participant in the orgy. At some stage, the ultimate knowledge dawns on him that he no longer can exercise his choice in this matter!  So, now let us see - the mouth, small as it is, has at least two contraptions, a few fingers (once, having far gone into la-la land, I vaguely counted a couple more than usual and not being able to figure out who they belonged to, guessed that some avid, revenue-generating spectators had joined the event) to hold things in place and a plastic block.  On top of all this, the dentist and her assistants have to get a clean line of sight to the repair site through the maze to avoid tragic collisions as well as blood-bath inside the mouth.  Do you blame the dentist for asking for BM?

Last week when I returned to the dentist for a review, I told her how I wished I had a BM! It would have made the visit to the dentist just a jittery experience like it is for an ordinary mortal instead of a traumatizing one.  I went on to narrate my experience thirty years ago with a Bombay based dentist who pulled out my wisdom tooth huffing and puffing, after a marathon session that left me bleeding profusely for some time.  And I had to carry an exceptionally well-fed look for two weeks, with the cheeks pretending to be mumps-afflicted.  That dentist had the gall to charge me extra for the horrendous experience, citing my small mouth as the cause of `his' trauma!  I sarcastically told my current dentist how some people blame everything on others.  She asked me what the name of that dentist was and when I told her, she looked very cross and abruptly ended the review.  Outside, the receptionist told me that Bombay dentist was her uncle and her role model!!

'You-and-your-small BM', I could hear my wife muttering under her breath!