Prakash mausi, who ate iron nails and occasionally people like milkmen and newspaper boys for breakfast, and her younger sister Urmila mausi, with the frizzy hair that flared like the late Sai Baba’s, shared a room in the Government Working Girls’ Hostel on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi. One day the two of them went shopping to Bengali Market, made famous by Bengali and Nathu – across the road eateries run by two oily black-moustached guys with identical fat bellies, white kurtas and jangling gold chains Bhappi Lahiri would have loved to own. This was where Delhiites, who liked their food to hurt them, forgot bad words like blood sugar and cholesterol and queued up for chole-bhature, dahi bhalle, alu tikki, paapdi chaat and gol gappe that seared the lips, set the tongue on fire and sent humans home panting like puppies.
The sisters came back without realizing that they had acquired identical blue toothbrushes with two little whirls of white bristles in the centre that were supposed to clear off plaque, keeping the teeth squeaky clean, the breath baby fresh and the smile dazzling white. Not that the last mattered to Prakash mausi who had smiled only twice in public memory. Once when Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India and once when she bullied the hostel management into banning male visitors. She had performed the lip stretch once also for the dentist cleaning her teeth but I guess that won’t count since it wasn’t brought on by the required emotion.
Returning to the story, both sisters dropped their new toothbrushes into the red plastic mug with the faded flowers that sat on their bathroom sink, holding two tongue cleaners (one shiny steel, the other white plastic), a quarter squished tube of Colgate toothpaste and some twigs snipped off the nearby neem tree that Prakash mausi chewed every morning in a display of east meet west in dental hygiene. A few days passed. And then, one morning, Urmila mausi was summoned from the bathroom by Prakash mausi, who was practising yoga under a blanket since it was a bit chilly. The doodhwallah was whining from behind the jaali-wala darwaza for his monthly payment.
To visualize the next scene exactly as it unfolded, you will have to lend me your imagination and let me set it to slow motion just the way it is done in action movie climaxes. At the exact same split second (to a rising crescendo of music) Urmila mausi walks out with her toothbrush in her hand (her mouth spouting a volcanic eruption of white foam that would have made the Colgate company pat themselves on the back) and Prakash mausi emerges from under her quilt on the floor. Her eagle eyes spot blue toothbrush and she lets out a shriek that makes Urmila mausi drop the change in her hand and the milkman (squatting outside the wire meshed door) his steel dallu, sending a winding river of white trickling down the hostel corridor.
Yoga forgotten, she sits on the bed and proceeds to tick Urmila mausi off for using her toothbrush. Urmila mausi rushes into the bathroom and emerges with the other toothbrush in a bid to prove her innocence. There is shocked silence when both sisters realize they own identical brushes and unbeknownst (can't tell you how many blogs i waited to use that word :-) ) of the fact have been using each others’ over the week.
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After the outrage had died down, Prakash mausi folded her blanket and knotted her hair in a stern bun; Urmila mausi rinsed the magnificent bubbles out of her mouth (and the doodhwallah left empty-handed, realizing today was not a good day to do milk maths with the sisters). Later that evening while the ladies were watching the 9 pm news on TV, Prakash mausi declared that after many hours of thought she had found a solution. “Urmila, tie a thread on your toothbrush so that there is no confusion anymore,” she commanded. When the gentle Urmila mausi (in a rare argumentative mood) walked across to the TV to turn down its volume (they didn’t have remotes in those days) and said: Didi, tu ne dhaga kyun nahin bandha apne toothbrush par? Prakash mausi was really, really surprized. For many days after that she went around telling people this story and said the most amazing thing was that it had never struck her that she could have tied that thread herself.
Didi, tu ne dhaga kyun nahin bandha apne toothbrush par: Why didn’t you tie the thread yourself?
Moral of the story (since Prakash mousi was the moralistic kind I thought she'd like one): Life is short. Don't let a good toothbrush go just because you couldn't tie a thread.
Author’s note
Prakash mausi is no more. But when I sit groggy in bed with an early morning cup of tea, she sometimes walks into my head – stern and statuesque in her long night gown - with a half-chewed neem twig in her hand and shakes it at at me saying: Tanni, tie the thread. And don’t swagger around with your hands in your pocket. You are sure to fall on your face one day.
The sisters came back without realizing that they had acquired identical blue toothbrushes with two little whirls of white bristles in the centre that were supposed to clear off plaque, keeping the teeth squeaky clean, the breath baby fresh and the smile dazzling white. Not that the last mattered to Prakash mausi who had smiled only twice in public memory. Once when Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India and once when she bullied the hostel management into banning male visitors. She had performed the lip stretch once also for the dentist cleaning her teeth but I guess that won’t count since it wasn’t brought on by the required emotion.
Returning to the story, both sisters dropped their new toothbrushes into the red plastic mug with the faded flowers that sat on their bathroom sink, holding two tongue cleaners (one shiny steel, the other white plastic), a quarter squished tube of Colgate toothpaste and some twigs snipped off the nearby neem tree that Prakash mausi chewed every morning in a display of east meet west in dental hygiene. A few days passed. And then, one morning, Urmila mausi was summoned from the bathroom by Prakash mausi, who was practising yoga under a blanket since it was a bit chilly. The doodhwallah was whining from behind the jaali-wala darwaza for his monthly payment.
To visualize the next scene exactly as it unfolded, you will have to lend me your imagination and let me set it to slow motion just the way it is done in action movie climaxes. At the exact same split second (to a rising crescendo of music) Urmila mausi walks out with her toothbrush in her hand (her mouth spouting a volcanic eruption of white foam that would have made the Colgate company pat themselves on the back) and Prakash mausi emerges from under her quilt on the floor. Her eagle eyes spot blue toothbrush and she lets out a shriek that makes Urmila mausi drop the change in her hand and the milkman (squatting outside the wire meshed door) his steel dallu, sending a winding river of white trickling down the hostel corridor.
Yoga forgotten, she sits on the bed and proceeds to tick Urmila mausi off for using her toothbrush. Urmila mausi rushes into the bathroom and emerges with the other toothbrush in a bid to prove her innocence. There is shocked silence when both sisters realize they own identical brushes and unbeknownst (can't tell you how many blogs i waited to use that word :-) ) of the fact have been using each others’ over the week.
--------------------
After the outrage had died down, Prakash mausi folded her blanket and knotted her hair in a stern bun; Urmila mausi rinsed the magnificent bubbles out of her mouth (and the doodhwallah left empty-handed, realizing today was not a good day to do milk maths with the sisters). Later that evening while the ladies were watching the 9 pm news on TV, Prakash mausi declared that after many hours of thought she had found a solution. “Urmila, tie a thread on your toothbrush so that there is no confusion anymore,” she commanded. When the gentle Urmila mausi (in a rare argumentative mood) walked across to the TV to turn down its volume (they didn’t have remotes in those days) and said: Didi, tu ne dhaga kyun nahin bandha apne toothbrush par? Prakash mausi was really, really surprized. For many days after that she went around telling people this story and said the most amazing thing was that it had never struck her that she could have tied that thread herself.
Didi, tu ne dhaga kyun nahin bandha apne toothbrush par: Why didn’t you tie the thread yourself?
Moral of the story (since Prakash mousi was the moralistic kind I thought she'd like one): Life is short. Don't let a good toothbrush go just because you couldn't tie a thread.
Author’s note
Prakash mausi is no more. But when I sit groggy in bed with an early morning cup of tea, she sometimes walks into my head – stern and statuesque in her long night gown - with a half-chewed neem twig in her hand and shakes it at at me saying: Tanni, tie the thread. And don’t swagger around with your hands in your pocket. You are sure to fall on your face one day.
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