The Story of Phil Terry, the Tooth Photographer



In the upmarket locality of Hauz Khas, Delhi, there is a palatial residence with a front lawn, large balconies and air-conditioning in every room. Behind it lived Phil Terry in an unventilated ground floor apartment. 

Phil Terry was born in South Africa, of rich parents running a very successful toothpaste company. Disillusioned with the ways of businessmen, he robbed his dad of half a million rands to study photography in India. At his son’s breaking away with the money, old Terry had a minor heart attack. The half a million rands was stashed away in cash to install a new ultra-high tech artificial pacemaker for his heart. He had recently searched it out on the internet and had decided to buy it on the black market. The pacemaker had the ability to dynamically control heart rate during intense excitement such as during sexual arousal, in order to improve performance. His heart’s native pacemaker had always been lagging behind from a very young age. It was a setback for the old man as he had been on several ordinary, imbecile pacemakers for the last couple of decades. It was a triumph for the lady, though. 

Phil Terry was the only eligible successor to the toothpaste empire of South Africa. He had a brother, but he was mentally retarded, and old Terry reluctantly wanted Phil to take over the responsibility of maintaining South Africa’s dental hygiene. The escape of his son to India though, brought momentary relief to old Terry, but he was soon filled up to the brim with grief. 

Phil, like his father, was smitten by teeth and while settling down in Delhi was bowled over by a dark well-endowed woman with sparkling white teeth. He proposed to her, and on their first night in his gloomy apartment he was satisfied, gently caressing her teeth with his tongue while she pretended to smile for a photograph. She did not mind at all, and they seemed to make a perfect couple. 

Phil was destined to be a ‘tooth photographer’, and he aimed at motivating himself with beautiful teeth. 

With the half million rands he now decides to put the paste money to good use. He buys himself a camera and a spotlight. Outside his abode in Hauz Khas, he gives an ad for beautiful teeth. A month passes by, nobody turns up. 

With an eye on his leaky fortunes, he starts taking pictures of his wife’s teeth. Starting from the incisors, he slowly moves in to the canines, then the premolars and then jumps with ecstasy when he reaches molars. All the while he is in seventh heaven, getting pleasure from every bit of deep stimulation the teeth provide. Sometimes he even takes pictures of his own teeth on the mirror, satisfying himself during times of great depression and anxiety. He develops an obsession for toothbrushes, the maintenance tools for his teeth. 

Soon, his dwindling fortunes harshly throw him into hard times. More than two months have now passed without a client, and this is coupled sweetly with the overburdening heat of the relentless Delhi summer. 

One day the heat is so intense that he feels like poaching an egg sunny side up on the sidewalk. Sitting on the pavement with his shooter and contemplating about his dark future, he is half-hallucinating, yet ignorant of the dehydration that is causing it. A pig walks languidly past him, swooning, smirking at him, laughing at his miserable condition. Feeling insulted, Phil gets up and follows the pig to its den of laughing piglets. Not amused yet rather interested, he keeps clicking photographs of piggy teeth. 

After about a week, he drops down with a severe headache and high fever. His wife in the mean time has become disenchanted with him and is contemplating asking for a divorce. Phil writes a will, bestowing his little fortune to his beloved, but that fails to impress her at this twelfth hour. His wife leaves him. 

But life doesn’t. Though Phil has been struck down with Japanese encephalitis, the doctors give him much hope. After a week of rigorous treatment in a community hospital, he is up on his feet again. On that fateful day, while he was busy appreciating teeth on page 3 of The Times of India, he missed the headlines announcing the rise of Japanese encephalitis spreading pigs in Delhi. He now remembers the laughing stock of pigs, but cannot confidently ascertain whether he was hallucinating. 

During his treatment though, he is very kindly nursed by a local dentist, a young lady of very graceful countenance. She had seen his ad, and now came to his aide during his grave tragedy. Having an equal fascination for teeth, and the two click off instantaneously. 

Phil finally finds his match and vows never to photograph grinning teeth again. Instead he lives happily, selling toothbrushes and a brand of South African toothpaste, and with his wife’s dental practice the two live happily ever after.

Dwaipayan Adhya

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