Open Wide

Although it’s been nearly 5 years since I had my braces removed, an appointment with the dentist still fills me with a sense of dread and makes me queasy. My tryst with orthodontists began way back when my milk teeth stood firmly rooted to my gums and refused to fall. I had to get all of them extracted since my permanent teeth had started growing right behind them by then. Later, owing to the size of my mouth (apparently the smallest mouth my dentist has ever looked into), my newly grown teeth had to be crammed in and when there wasn’t sufficient space for all of them, I was forced to wear braces followed by retainers. My dad had spent more on my teeth than my entire education up until that point.

Having spent most of my childhood in and out of the dentist’s clinic, you’d think that I’d be used to it by now. However, each visit is as refreshingly unpleasant as the one before. The gruelling process starts in the waiting room, with spotless white tiles, white walls, and neat rows of seats lined up against the walls, all splashed with a blinding white light. Every inch of the walls are covered with certificates of achievement and multiple degrees obtained in universities abroad, which are in all good sense meant to assure patients that they are in safe hands. Instead, what it does is make you realize to your horror that this particular dentist has a whole lot more torture techniques up his sleeves than the average Dr. Muthuswamy down the road. As you wait frightfully for your turn, you see fellow patients crawl out, groaning, moaning, and clutching their swollen cheeks in agony. At long last the receptionist with her satanic smile ushers you in. It’s your turn.

The dentist’s chair - It’s designed along the lines of the medieval Chair of Torture. The dental equipments fitted into the movable tray look distastefully nasty and include a miniature drilling machine with a long and dangerously pointed edge. Now the dentist, with an evil glint in his eye, looks gleefully down at you, his latest victim, and prods away happily in your mouth with a sharp probe.

“Does it hurt now?” *jab*

*groan* “Ooowww.. YES”

*prods elsewhere* “Now?”

“YES!”

*prods again in the first prod-area* “Now??”

“YES YOU RETARD, IT ISN’T GOING TO HURT ANY LESS IF YOU’RE GOING TO CONTINUE PRODDING IT WITH THAT TORTURE INSTRUMENT”

It’s a small wonder then that I bit down hard on my dentist’s finger when he was too busy making conversation with my dad to realize that he was prodding my palate incredibly hard. Take that, you sadistic prick! I swore that I’d never go back to see a dentist again once I was through with my braces and retainers, and I would have kept my word too if it wasn’t for the killer toothache that victimized me two days ago. It got so bad that I just had to get it checked today. My my... all the memories that came rushing back the minute I took my place in the chair overwhelmed me - the blinding light, the smell of antiseptics and some sort of plaster combined, the rubber gloves, the horrid dental instruments, the unbearable pain, all of it. To my good fortune though, it turned out that the toothache was a result of a sinus problem I have and I was asked to consult an ENT specialist, which was probably the best thing I’ve heard any dentist say to me. Phew!

Medusa and Hemlock

It’s time for a new self-centred rant. I know you guys missed them, as much as you would hate to admit it! :D So why prolong your wait? Your misery ends here... behold a new rant about... *drum rolls*... MY HAIR!!

Yes, my hair - the object of ardent admiration and envy, the epitome of all awesomeness. If in the future I bequeath my hair to you in the form of a hair transplant (don’t you dare get any ideas about progeny and shiz), I would necessarily have to include an instruction manual. You see, my hair is just that unique and that awesome. However, for all those curious people who wonder how I manage my hair, I hope this answers your questions.

FAQS:

1. How Devathi, HOW do you comb your unruly hair?

Devathi replies – Dearest love, the Britishers learnt it soon enough while they were trying desperately to rule our country, and parents caught on quickly as well when it came to managing their children – Divide and Rule. Heard of the phrase ‘United we stand, divided we fall’? The same applies to my hair. What I do is split it up into many portions, hold them down with numerous rubber bands, catch hold of one portion of hair at a time and force a comb through it.

2. What do you do to your hair after you’re done combing it?

Oh, I take a light and start an African bush fire in the hope that one of those dreamy firemen will come rescue me (although that doesn’t really apply in India). Not. I use a perpetually changing number of rubber bands and tic-toc clips to stop it from defying gravity all the time. The wind can be a bitch though.

3. What sort of combs or brushes do you use?

Devathi says – Hmm. After a lot of experimentation I discovered that brushes were ineffective and therefore settled for big-toothed combs. I use two combs at a time, one in each hand, while wrestling my hair. Glad you asked.

4. How do you wash your hair? Do you even wash it?!

Devathi: Yes, I do wash it, and quite often at that. My mama taught me personal hygiene, but you seem like you could use a few lessons. As for how I wash it, I apply the Divide and Rule method again. It’s hard to get to your scalp when you have a miniature Amazon Jungle for hair, but I found that the D&R method works better than the tear-your-hair-out-of-your-scalp-out-of-frustration method. So I divide it into portions again and wash each area of my scalp tediously. The rest is relatively easy because all that needs to be done is squeeze an entire shampoo bottle onto my head and lather away furiously.

5. On an average, how long does it take to wash your hair?

Devathi is tiring of the questions but will answer nicely anyway: About an hour, if my hair is in a good mood.

6. Do you use a hair dryer?

When they invent a hair dryer that can actually dry my hair, let me know – mail me at devathip@gmail.com. I dry my hair by head banging to music (it works) or I just let it dry on its own.

7. Do birds ever mistake your hair for a nest?

Yes, crows especially. *orders her personal mafia to kill the person who asked her this question*

8. In what ways do you style your hair?

Oh gee... It alternates between the curly look and the fluffy cotton candy look. I can’t be bothered to do anything more with it. The curly look takes minimum effort since all I need to do is wash my hair (the science behind it: all the cysteine residues form intrastrand bonds again, bonds which might have been broken earlier due to combing). I love the curly look but it comes at a price – combing it later is thrice as hard. As for the cotton candy look, that’s just a result of combing it (and hence temporarily breaking the cysteine bonds).

9. Do you ever get bored of your hair?

No. It’s fun to play with.

10. Does stuff get lost in your hair?

Yes, quite often. Once a friend found a dead spider in my hair... the cause of death appeared to have been suffocation. Among the other things I’ve found are bits of paper and rubber bands that I misplaced. Maybe I should start smuggling weed in my hair... I’d be rich.

11. Why don’t you straighten your hair?

I don’t want to look like everyone else. My hair is unique and I love it. It’s an integral part of my personality and I couldn’t care less if straight hair could make me look better or if that boy I’m crushing on likes straight-as-steel-rods hair. If you’re one of the kazillion people who’ve asked me this question, you should know that you’re on the hit list that I’m sending across to my mafia right now. Beware.

12. Is your hair natural?

Uh. Why don’t you tug on it and see for yourself, retard? Of course it’s natural! Before you ask, my mother and sister have curly hair too, except not as awesome as mine!

A few things that require special mention – I dressed up as Medusa for a Halloween Party once where I let my hair loose and had snakes in it. My hair is instrumental to most of my costumes for various theme parties, like even at the Retro Farewell Party in school where I dressed up as Boney M.

So, there are times when my hair is just absolutely unruly and unmanageable. There are times when I just wanna shave it off or grab it with both hands and scream “Die stupid hair die!”, but for what it’s worth, I LOVE it.

To my hair – I love you! *flying kiss*

One Shopping Bag, Two Shopping Bags, Three..

If I had to define shopping, I’d say that it was a recreational sport that most women indulged in. Why do they do what they do? Nobody knows.

Here are a few observations that I’ve made:

1. Women take forever to pick something out, be it clothes, cosmetics, shoes, bags, supplies, whatever. They make purgatory seem like a snap of the fingers.
2. They just can’t walk into a store and buy what they have to. They absolutely positively need to go to at least ten different stores that sell the same thing, make comparisons with the products of the previous stores and finally end up going back to the first store.
3. Bargaining – it’s obsessive compulsive disorder. They must bargain and quote unreasonably low prices. Following defeat by harassed shopkeepers, they end up paying the original price anyway and walk out beaming.
4. If asked to walk from one end of the street to other in heels, they will refuse to do so under the pretext of their legs hurting. But if they have to walk up and down the same street in heels multiple times while shopping, it’s perfectly alright because they have strong calf muscles. Right.
5. They throw tricky questions at those who accompany them on their shopping sprees. For example, while buying a pair of shoes they might ask, “Is this nice?” If you say yes, they ask why. If you say no, you still have to answer why. If you really don’t know the answer, give a non-committal reply like a grunt. Also, they tend to ask the same question twice, so at a later time if they show you the same pair of shoes that you said weren’t nice, remember what your answer was because they definitely will. It’s a test... shhh. Another example, “Do I look fat in this?” Now the logical answer to this question if the person is fat is – Yes dear, you are fat and you’re obviously going to look fat in anything you wear. But the right answer to this question is – No, not at all. It complements your curves (or tyres or whatever other geometrical structure).
6. They spend over an hour in a clothes store trying on different things, spend another 30 minutes eliminating stuff from the pile of clothes they tried on, figure out that they don’t like anything after all and ultimately walk out empty-handed.
7. They notice the minutest defects in what they intend to purchase, like for instance the most microscopic tear in the sleeve of a sweater that even an ant wouldn’t fit through.
8. The correlation between happiness and the number of shopping bags is very high.

Pop quiz: Why do women like to window shop?