My father woke up one day and announced that he could not find his toothbrush.

Where can a toothbrush go? Did my father keep it somewhere and forget about it? On the dressing table, in the toilet, inside the wardrobe perhaps? My mother had kept her glasses in the fridge once. When they were found a week later, behind a forgotten bowl of dal, they were very cold.

We began to look everywhere for the missing toothbrush, under the bed, inside the teapot, in the loft, behind our ears — yes, anything can happen, any time. Dust flew, temperatures rose. How can a toothbrush just disappear, like that?

Then someone asked my father to describe the toothbrush — and he couldn’t remember what it looked like for the world.

So it struck us. The toothbrush had left home!

What did we do that was wrong? We didn’t know it was wrong. We thought we had provided all our toothbrushes with a good home, washed them and cleaned them, did not brush too hard with them and when they became old, retired them gently and used them for pedicure. Obviously this was not enough.

Come to think of it, perhaps our toothbrush found it hard to bear. To be used by a person, twice every day, once in the morning and once in the evening, for a dirty, thankless job, and to be aware that that person, the one for whom it lived, did not even know what it looked like, let alone its views and its politics, is very sad. It happens, though.

Or did the toothbrush feel claustrophobic? It had stood in a square ceramic toothbrush stand, of blue, and probably white, colour, and I am trying to remember the design on its front — there are so many things we can’t recall, though we know them intimately, daily — with the other toothbrushes. Did it feel that that was too little space?

Was it too bristly? Or were the others too bristly? Was it fat, short, stubby and old-fashioned, of a colour no one noticed, while the others were slim, tall and designer? With adjustable necks and a middle that tapered into a fine waist and spread out softly again, while our toothbrush just stood stiff? Did the others have bristles that were soft, well-groomed, evenly cut, had shades of colour, while all that this one had to show was a rough, stubbly growth on the head? It might have felt just ridiculous standing there and walked off.

Or was it just lonely? Did it have too much to say and not one listener? Whenever it approached someone, did it hear: “Oh, there it goes again!” Besides, everyone was busy studying for MBA or sending texts. But on those long, lonely afternoons, above the washbasin, nestling against the mirror, it might have just wanted to hang out with friends and chat. A toothbrush knows many things. It knows its user’s dirty little secrets. It knows when he has been out for a drink or two after work with whoever but is not telling his wife about it. On such days, he brushes his teeth right after returning home and takes a long bath.

A toothbrush also knows what its owner ate all day. A toothbrush knows what he has been at all day. A toothbrush knows.

And a toothbrush needs to talk, a toothbrush needs to dance, a toothbrush needs to party. So our toothbrush wandered off, wherever toothbrushes go, to have fun.

chandrima@abpmail.com