Wednesday, March 17, 2010

At the dentist's - a humbling experience!

As a follow through of last Wednesday’s appointment with the dentist, today’s was our second visit to the Armed Forces Dental Clinic. Surgeon Commander Mrs. Archana Khanna had to be convinced that Lekha needed a ‘root canal treatment’ on one of her molars, her past history of SLE(Systemic Lupus Erythmatosis) and the consequential intake of steroids notwithstanding – the high dosage of steroids makes the bones and teeth go brittle, so much so, that when the ‘toothy’ uses the drill, the healthier teeth can get affected/damaged and normally, a dentist, who wants to play safe, either opts for extraction or filling.

I was glad that Archana was made of sterner stuff and agreed to my suggestion but must confess that this was not my original idea, but thanks to the advice given by my cousin, who is a dentist in Thiruvananthapuram.

And as I was in the waiting room while Lekha was on the dentist’s chair, I had the opportunity of meeting a youngster, who’d seen me in one of my previous ‘avatars’ and said quite a lot of things, that made my day. Brigadier Sreekumar from the regiment of artillery seemed to be really thrilled to see his first ‘House Captain’ in school, when he had joined the school in the fifth standard.

He recalled those days(1970-’72), when I used to put them though the pace of outdoors where no sloppiness was tolerated and how they, as a course, had hated me all through. The hatred seemed to have lessened to a degree when the house won the ‘Best House’ trophy but what brought a lump into my throat was when he quoted from my speech that I’d given to them after the awards ceremony –“Boys, always remember that the harshest training ensures that you’re never found wanting in the utmost emergency”. Frankly, I still don’t believe that I was so evolved then and said as much, but then! He also said that whenever their course got together, I was one of the guys who was fondly remembered and that he’d put in the details of today’s meeting into their course mail group on the net.

It definitely was a great boost to my ego but above all, a tremendously gladdening yet humbling experience!!

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