The missing smiles

He wasn’t here to create smiles. The correct term was social service. He glanced at the weary faces, some of them disfigured by a swelling, waiting for their turn to come, hoping the man in the white coat would somehow make everything alright.

 His job consisted mostly extractions, the word conservation unheard in these parts, seldom an emergency root canal opening. They had too many patients, and too little time. The dental clinic was equipped with basic equipments, the dental chair barely functional. There wasn’t even a regular dentist. Some dentists like him visited once a month, every last Sunday, to provide basic dental care.

This wasn't the dentistry he knew.

Though his mind wandered, his hands worked with the same efficiency, and his face held his routine smile. The patient, whose tooth he had just extracted gave him a lopsided smile, revealing missing anterior tooth. He shuddered.

How do these people eat with so many missing teeth? He realized the right question was, do they even afford to eat everyday? He stared at the calluses on their hand, their sun burnt skin and worn out clothes.

This wasn’t the world he knew.

The gloomy atmosphere was more suffocating than the dingy, cluttered room. Was he in some bizarre, dystopian novel? The people, he knew, would go at lengths just to modify their smile, to enhance their beauty. These were the people who couldn’t afford pain relief, they had no reason, no occasion to smile. If only he could create smiles here!

This was the place where God Himself had forgotten to distribute smiles.

D is for Dentistry; for Dentists who Dedicate their life to solve your dental problems.

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I feel like the earth is made of parallel worlds, half are in the quest of happiness, the other half haven't heard of the word, happiness.

Have you ever visited a place which you felt was completely different from your world? Do let me know your experiences.
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