An Agony amidst Heaven - I

It was the summer of 1993 when we were far away from the chaos of the world. We were amidst the most beautiful place on this planet where the mountains were covered with greenery and patches of land were often grazed by the cattle. Untouched by civilization, unfazed by the people and unconquered by the humans. The beauty of this place was so enchanting that if God were to come on earth, it would only be this place where he would stay. The place was fondly called as the “Land of the Thunder Dragon”; today we know it as “Bhutan”.

The only reason I was here was my husband who was posted as a Major of the Indian Army. The place that served as the Indian Army base was known as “Yang Fula”. This was the adobe of my small little family and (as I always believed) of that of God as well. Although the tanks on routine patrols and the mass drill of the soldiers were a customary sight, the sounds of birds chirping on tree tops and the leaves swaying by the wind would often leave us mesmerized. The market was far away from our house and like a nomad, I had to travel, in fact walk a few kilometers to buy the bare necessities. Nonetheless, I enjoyed few of the best days of my life at this place.

(Our sweet home in Yang Fula)


All this while, I was more than happy to be at this place. Although deprived from the advancement of technology, it never took away my comfort. The fact that this place was untouched by science and its preachers made this none less than heaven. Added to those sweet, pleasant and cherished memories, is an experience that I still strive to forget. An incident that made me realize the importance of a developed state, that made me curse my very existence in this underdeveloped country.
It was one of those moments when the ordeal was so much that I thought I could give away everything; even my life if that could pacify the pain. The pain developed in one of my tooth was dutifully amplified by my husband – a dentist to whom first I had surrendered my life and then my tooth!!

My husband had earned a lot of fame and recognition in the rural native as he was the only serving dentist for the locality. At a place where the staple diet of people consisted of dried beetle nut (“Duma”) and dried yak’s milk (“Chhurbi”), almost every person had stained and spoiled teeth. The locals were grateful to him as he had been their only pain reliever. Little did I know that the pain reliever of the neighborhood would be the cause of my agony?

Indian Army was his practice area and my mouth was his battleground. It started with negotiations with the tooth by administering a few antibiotics. The medication failed to do any good and finally the battle lines had to be drawn. The mission was elimination of tooth from my own territory. In spite of his expertise in dentistry, I was extremely skeptic about the surgery. With much reluctance, I got myself mentally ready to be operated on. The operation required a recce of the tooth and its orientation in the bone which was possible only through an X-ray. At a place that was yet to see its first full fledged hospital, getting a proper X-ray was an intricate task. Nevertheless, my husband managed a primitive X-ray done for my tooth.

With all the information that the X-ray could provide, my husband started the operation with two of his assistants. I lay on a reasonably comfortable chair (unlike the modern one) with mouth wide open and in total acceptance of the situation. I was administered anesthesia for a “painless” removal of the tooth. All the usual procedures were at its place and everything looked quite okay at the commencement of the operation. After a while, I noticed the change in body language of all the three. I could smell something fishy, as if something was not happening in the way it should have. He would glance at the X-ray for once and in the other moment, in my mouth. This continued for sometime, as if he was ensuring whether the X-ray was that of a proper tooth. Until then, I had only heard stories of people being victim of faulty X-ray scan which would lead to the removal of a healthy tooth rather than an unwanted one. It was always followed by a burst of laughter and empathy on the sorry state of the patient. Only this time, I was the sorry figure and someone else would have had the last laugh. I was praying relentlessly that this should not be the case. It was a very comical situation where a storm of thoughts and questions rose in my mind, my mouth was too open to ask anything. Only expressions that I could give, was a frowning forehead, a raised eyebrow and the eyes popping out with the eyeballs moving from one end to other, staring (rather scaring) the three of them. It was like a “Helloo!! Whats going on??” kind of look. Thankfully, the X-ray was proper. But the tooth was adamantly stuck in the bone. The X-ray was a primitive one which showed only the lateral view of the tooth and its actual orientation in the bone was still a mystery. What else can you expect from an “untouched”, “unfazed” raw beauty of a remote location in Bhutan? This was the time when my love for this place suddenly turned sour.

The tooth was now at an intermediate stage. It was not completely out and it seemed that the tooth would remain stuck half way if something else was not tried. Just when something else was about to be tried, mother nature had its fury casted further more on me and the power went off!

What happened next?? I bet you cannot guess. Wait for the next post and expect the unexpected!!