A toothache is a toothache. There is nothing like
it.
The pain shoots up from your gums and inflames
your brain.
I had my first toothache during Uncle Leo’s
wedding. In those days, a wedding in our town of Vasai went on for a week. All
relatives would camp in and around the wedding house. It was a most leisurely
affair.
On the first day, women took the rice and lentils
to the mill on their heads in wicker baskets. They sang as they traipsed along.
The roughly-ground flour was used for making the ‘wedding wadas’ which
are doughnut-shaped deep-fried dumplings.
The wadas are made a day before the
wedding and distributed to all the families in the village and other relatives
who live far away. This is the favourite day of the wedding celebration for
most people.
Soon after lunch, one or more deep iron
skillets were put on the fire stoves. When the oil had reached the boiling
point, young girls and women, quickly patted wadas on their palms and lowered
them gently into the pool of oil. The doughnut-shaped flour balls sank to the
bottom then quickly rose to the surface and swam around till the oil imparted
them a golden glow. Watchful men with long wooden-handled slotted spoons fished
the wadas out of the oil and lay them in wicker baskets lined with
paper.
The aroma of these wadas rises up and spreads
throughout the village compelling everybody to rush to the wedding house. To eat
fresh hot wadas is a not-to-be-missed opportunity.
My little cousins and I were hanging around the
wada baskets when I had a sharp pain in one of my upper milk teeth. I
was looking forward to eating many of those golden wadas. My mum and dad
were busy elsewhere and I couldn’t find them. With one hand resting on my
aching cheek, I cried bitterly. My cousins huddled around me not knowing how to
help. As a child, all problems seem magnified versions of what they are now. It
hurt so badly.
All around me people were singing, teasing,
joking, laughing, and falling in love.
“Galyan sakli sonyachi, hee pori konachi?”
– The girl wears a golden chain, whose
daughter is she? – sang the women.
Their high-pitched singing drowned my sobbing. So
I advertised my toothache with a great
deal of drama. Soon, people were asking, "Whose daughter is this with the toothache?"
In those days, people did not visit dentists
often.
There were numerous suggestions of home
remedies.
Roja Kaku, the groom’s mother, offered a clove
from her spice rack, saying, “Here, this should make you feel better.” She showed me how
to hold it under my teeth.
When it gave no relief, I started crying again.
By now I had gained a little audience of worried relatives. They let me try out
warm tea and salt water gargling.
People peeked into my mouth and showed their
children what would happen if they didn’t brush their teeth regularly.
And then, pushing his way through the crowd,
came Uncle Shabby.
He was nicknamed Shabby not because he was scruffy
and messy. ‘Shabby’ just sounds nice in our native Marathi language.
His real name was Victor.
His real name was Victor.
He was holding a bottle of daru – home-brewed
liquour.
“This” he said confidently, “should do the
trick and make your tooth feel better”.
“No, daru is bad. I will not drink it” I
said.
“Just try a little bit and tell me how you feel”
Uncle Shabby coaxed.
To tell the truth, the toothache was so bad, I
would have drunk even bitter gourd juice at that moment to make it better.
He gave me a sip and the liquid burned down my
throat.
He put a few drops of it on a cotton ball and
placed it under my aching tooth. He told me to hold it tight by clamping my
upper and lower teeth tightly.
A numbing lightness breezed through my brain
and the toothache gradually vanished.
I sang most merrily with the people near the wada
baskets.
A few days later the decayed tooth fell out.
