When not to turn the other cheek
Why Read This
What Makes This Article Worth Your Time
Summary
What This Article Is About
Swati Deshpande, a senior editor at The Times of India, crafts a deeply personal essay about surviving a severe dog bite injury that pierced through her facial SMAS layer (superficial musculoaponeurotic system), requiring emergency surgery and leaving a permanent scar. Through playful linguistic exploration of the word “cheek,” she transitions from whimsical observations about facial anatomy in literature and culture to the visceral reality of facial trauma and reconstruction.
The narrative weaves medical details—including debridement, three-layer suturing, and post-operative healing that left her resembling The Joker—with reflections on society’s relationship with facial scarring. Deshpande examines how scars carry social stigma, often marking villains in cinema, while exploring her own journey toward accepting visible imperfection. Her tone balances vulnerability with humor, ultimately arguing that trauma becomes bearable when met with self-deprecating laughter and resilience rather than vanity or shame.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
Linguistic Playfulness as Entry Point
The essay begins with extensive wordplay around “cheek,” exploring cultural references from Shakespeare to Bollywood, creating lighthearted engagement before revealing the trauma narrative.
Severe Facial Trauma Details
A dog bite penetrated three of five facial layers, tearing through the SMAS—a fibro-muscular network of collagen, elastin, and muscle fibers critical for facial expressions.
Complex Surgical Intervention
Emergency treatment required extensive debridement of traumatized tissue followed by three-layer suturing, resulting in post-operative appearance compared to Batman’s Joker character during healing.
Cultural Stigma of Scars
Society associates facial scarring with villainy through cinema imagery, while only 10 percent of adults experience facial dog attacks, making visible scars relatively uncommon and socially marked.
Varied Social Reactions
Responses ranged from humor comparing her to Scar from Lion King, to blunt suggestions about plastic surgery and aging concerns, revealing diverse social comfort with visible imperfection.
Humor as Coping Mechanism
The author embraces self-deprecating humor and laughs until her cheeks hurt at insensitive comments, demonstrating resilience through comedy rather than dwelling on vanity or permanent disfigurement.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
Resilience Through Vulnerability and Humor
The central thesis explores how trauma survivors navigate the intersection of physical disfigurement and social perception by embracing imperfection with self-aware humor. Deshpande demonstrates that healing from visible injury involves not just medical reconstruction but psychological acceptance of how scars alter one’s relationship with the world, arguing that laughter provides more sustainable recovery than denial or vanity-driven distress.
Purpose
Personal Testimony as Universal Reflection
Deshpande writes to process her own traumatic experience while offering readers insight into the psychological dimensions of facial injury recovery. By sharing medical details alongside emotional responses and social reactions, she normalizes conversations about visible difference and challenges cultural associations between scarring and moral character, particularly cinema’s tendency to mark villains with facial imperfection.
Structure
Playful Misdirection to Revelation
Whimsical → Traumatic → Reflective. Opens with extensive linguistic exploration of “cheek” through cultural references and wordplay, establishing lighthearted tone before pivoting sharply to visceral medical trauma. Transitions into technical anatomical explanation of SMAS layer damage and surgical reconstruction, concluding with philosophical reflection on societal perceptions of scarring and the author’s humorous acceptance of permanent facial alteration.
Tone
Self-Deprecating, Candid & Philosophical
Deshpande blends literary playfulness with unflinching medical honesty, creating a conversational intimacy that invites readers into vulnerable territory. Her self-aware humor about resembling The Joker and comparing herself to scarred fictional characters demonstrates emotional intelligence and resilience, while her willingness to share graphic surgical details and insensitive social comments reveals courage in confronting stigma surrounding visible difference.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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Relating to a structural system combining muscles and aponeuroses (flat sheets of connective tissue), particularly in facial anatomy where this network enables coordinated muscular movements and expressions.
“The superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS) is an organized fibro-muscular network—essentially as NIH says, ‘a key structure involved in facial aging.'”
Covering or marking a surface with numerous small spots or bubbles; creating a bubbly or spotted appearance across an area, often used metaphorically to describe skin blemishes.
“…from soft and smooth to shadowy, fuzzy, hollowed, freckles frothing it or pimples pockmarking it.”
Creating small depressed scars or pits on a surface, typically the skin, often resulting from acne, chickenpox, or other conditions that leave permanent indentations.
“Cheeks play a huge part in adolescent angst. When the first zit shows up but can’t be zapped…freckles frothing it or pimples pockmarking it.”
Extremely thin and bony in appearance, especially due to suffering, hunger, or age; having a haggard, hollow look that suggests physical hardship or illness.
“…cheeks can certainly chart a whole curvature of colours. From rosy and pink to pale and white, red and youthful to grey and gaunt…”
The lower part of a person’s or animal’s cheek, especially when fleshy or drooping; often refers to the jawline area or loose skin hanging below the jaw.
“Plenty of cheek going around here, did you say? Almost cheek by jowl.”
To walk at a slow, relaxed pace without hurry or urgency; moving in a leisurely, unhurried manner, often suggesting casual or aimless movement.
“…but occasionally, someone may amble up and in a matter-of-fact tone, as one recently did, and say, ‘Oh the scar still looks bad.'”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to the article, the dog bite injury penetrated through the SMAS layer, which required the surgeon to perform debridement before completing three layers of suturing.
2What percentage of adults, according to the article, experience dog attacks on their face?
3Which sentence best captures the author’s ultimate attitude toward her facial scar and others’ reactions to it?
4Based on the article’s discussion of facial anatomy and cultural references, determine whether each statement is true or false.
The SMAS (superficial musculoaponeurotic system) is composed of collagen, elastin, fat cells, and muscle fibers, and functions as a central structure enabling coordinated facial expressions.
The author uses Shakespeare’s King Lear to illustrate how cheeks primarily symbolize youth and beauty in classical literature rather than emotional intensity or suffering.
Bollywood movies traditionally use facial scarring as a visual marker to distinguish villainous characters from heroic ones, perpetuating associations between scars and moral character.
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5Based on the article’s structure and tone, what can be inferred about the author’s purpose in beginning with extensive playful exploration of the word “cheek” before revealing her trauma?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
The superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS) is an organized fibro-muscular network composed of collagen, elastin, fat cells, and muscle fibers located deep within facial skin. It represents the third of five facial layers and functions as a central structure enabling coordinated facial muscular contractions vital for producing expressions. When damaged by trauma like a dog bite, it requires extensive debridement and multiple-layer surgical repair, making injuries to this layer particularly complex and serious.
The author critiques how Bollywood traditionally marks villains with facial scars while heroes remain unblemished, perpetuating unconscious associations between scarring and moral character. She observes, “It had to be a scar-y cheek, or you couldn’t be a villain,” highlighting how cinema reinforces stigma around visible facial imperfection. This cultural imagery contributes to social discomfort with scars and explains why people might view her permanent marking with assumptions or unease beyond simple aesthetic observation.
Humor serves multiple purposes: it creates tonal contrast making the trauma revelation more striking, demonstrates her resilient personality, and models healthy coping with permanent physical alteration. From playful wordplay about “cheek” to self-deprecating comparisons with The Joker and Scar from Lion King, her comedy transforms potentially devastating experience into manageable narrative. The essay concludes with her laughing “till my cheeks hurt” at an insensitive comment, showing humor provides more sustainable healing than vanity-driven distress about appearance.
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This article is rated Intermediate because it combines accessible personal narrative with moderately sophisticated vocabulary (debridement, musculoaponeurotic, ennui) and literary references requiring cultural knowledge. The structure demands tracking tonal shifts from playful to traumatic to reflective, while the medical content introduces technical anatomical terminology balanced by conversational explanation. Readers need comfort with figurative language, cultural allusions to Shakespeare and Bollywood, and ability to interpret self-deprecating humor as psychological insight rather than surface-level jokes.
As a senior editor at The Times of India who has covered courts for over a decade, Deshpande brings professional experience analyzing human behavior, judgment, and social systems to her personal trauma narrative. Her legal background may inform her attention to evidence-based medical detail and her analytical approach to examining cultural attitudes toward scarring. This professional lens adds authority to her observations about how society judges visible difference, making her personal essay simultaneously a social commentary grounded in years of observing human judgment systems.
The Ultimate Reading Course covers 9 RC question types: Multiple Choice, True/False, Multi-Statement T/F, Text Highlight, Fill in the Blanks, Matching, Sequencing, Error Spotting, and Short Answer. This comprehensive coverage prepares you for any reading comprehension format you might encounter.
