Troubles with a Toothbrush

This tale is about Ahmed and Raj and their troubles with a toothbrush.

 Let me rewind to the city of Tehran, not the Tehran of today, but the Tehran that was known as the Paris of the Middle East with some of the most cultured, smartest and fashionable people on God’s green earth. It was in this city that I landed armed with my bachelor’s degree, much to my mother’s relief (she seemed to have considered it a miracle that I had acquired any degree at all considering my rather colorful scholastic career). My parents had been living in Tehran for quite some time with my father on the editorial team of one of the only two English daily newspapers. To put my time to good use while I decided on what I would like to do with my life, career wise, I garnered a position in the newspapers as proof reader and it was here that I met the two main characters in this little story. The Tehran Times, as the newspaper was called, was peopled by a mixed bag of nationalities. Not surprising since the local grasp of the English language was not widespread. The only two we need to meet for  purposes of this story is Raj and Ahmed.

Raj was from India. Raj was an ardent follower of the Bollywood fare that had heroes in high-collars and platform shoes in earnest pursuit of scantily clad heroines who coyly ran around the first available tree. He endeavored to dress like his celluloid heroes as well in direct contrast to the rather casual mode of dress adopted in a newspaper office. The one thing a keen observer could never miss were his teeth. Raj had a perfect set of teeth. In a day and age, when cosmetic teeth whitening was unheard of Raj’s molars were straight out of a toothpaste advertisement. You almost expected to see the starry twinkle when he smiled and displayed his set of perfect white teeth. Raj lived in a bachelor pad just above the newspaper’s office. These living quarters were provided to Raj by the company and the general cleaning of his apartment was entrusted to Ahmed. Ahmed was our tea-boy cum cleaner, and a veritable jack of all trades. He and I had an agreement. On days when I was nursing a hangover, which was on most days (Tehran had a nightlife in those days that was equal to almost anything the West had to offer), he would provide me with one of his refreshing lime-juice pick me ups. Ahmed was everything that Raj was not. Ahmed was a large man with a prominent belly, scruffy beard and looked as if he had stuffed a basketball under his shirt. 

He also had tobacco-stained teeth or at least the few he was left with were stained beyond restoration. Albeit the lack of teeth, Ahmed was a jovial character and he would go about his duties humming the latest Persian ditty while doling out glasses of black tea with cubes of sugar. You drank it in the traditional style, nursing the cube of sugar on your tongue and straining the tea through it in a slurping motion. The trouble with a toothbrush, erupted on a day like any other. Ahmed was cheerily going about his business. He had just come down from cleaning Raj’s pad. I had trudged through the snow and made it into the warmth of the office on a cold winter’s day and was looking forward to a hot cup of tea to accompany my breakfast of not so healthy but very tasty skewers of fatty lamb wrapped in flat Persian lavash bread. The rest of the crew was also settling down to face the day. Raj suddenly appeared looking very flustered, still attired in nightwear and looking far from his usual dapper self. Raj spotting Ahmed zeroed in on him waving his toothbrush. I presumed it was his toothbrush. Realizing the morning was getting interesting I moved in closer to get a ringside seat. “Why is my toothbrush wet?” he asked Ahmed. I take the liberty of translating this conversation from Persian to English since Ahmed didn’t speak a word of English. Ahmed just kept looking at him, he seemed rather surprised at this question. Raj then went on to say, “and it was out of its place.” 

Now Raj was very fastidious about his possessions. His desk resembled nothing like a newspaperman’s desk; everything on it was neatly arranged with a place for everything. Some would even say these were the first signs of OCD manifesting itself and a toothbrush out of place was sacrilege in the orderly scheme of things. Ahmed on the other hand was calm, “it’s wet because its wet, today I forgot to put it back in its holder,” he said. Raj was getting increasingly agitated. Brandishing his toothbrush, he repeated his question, “yes, but why is it wet?” Now here I must pause and enlighten you on the oral hygiene methods of the rural Iranian and Ahmed was as rural as one would wish to get. In the hinterlands they used the miswak roughly translated it mean the chewing stick, a piece of soft wood which was an ancient version of the toothbrush. The toothbrush as we know it was an alien concept. Now back to Raj and Ahmed and the burning question of the wet toothbrush. “It’s wet because I finish brushing and washed it,” said Ahmed. I thought our fastidiously clean Raj was going to have an apoplectic fit. He threw the toothbrush he was holding and began stammering and stuttering. His command of Persian was now fast deteriorating into sign language. He was mid explosion when he screamed, “you used my toothbrush!” Ahmed still calm and if addressing a child said, “yes your toothbrush.” He really didn’t realize what the fuss was about. “You use it every day, I see you doing it” he said. “I also use it every day, when I come to clean. My teeth will soon be like yours,” and he displayed his yellowing teeth to Raj. 

The thought of his toothbrush travelling on a daily basis across this vision of a dentist’s nightmare was the last straw. Raj exited the room at a loss for words. The speed of his departure told me that mouthwash would figure hugely in his morning’s ablutions. Ahmed having in his mind satisfactorily explained the riddle of the wet toothbrush resumed his humming and continued his serving of tea.