During my second morning at the Farmers’ protest site, I was there in a open ground near a KFC restaurant which had been transformed into a sort of massive public bathroom. Portable containers had been put up for use as toilets and urinals, and one particular nook was being used for bathing and washing purposes. At any given time during a regular morning, five to ten people were always taking bath at this place.
I needed a toothbrush. We had come to the protest thinking of a brief one-day visit, but the spirit of those who had been staying there since last nine months motivated us to stay at least one night there and witness a night at Singhu.
Therefore, I didn’t have any clothes to change, neither a toothbrush, nor toothpaste, nor a soap – nothing one might need were he to spend a night outside his home.
Someone suggested I should visit a langar and ask for either a toothpaste or daatan. A daatan is a plant product, usually a neem or kikkar, that one chews. Traditionally, when there were no toothpastes or brushes, people used daatans. Last year I got to meet a farmer, whose age was around 75, and his teeth were perhaps stronger than mine! He never used a Colgate. He just chewed a daatan every morning.
I visited the nearest langar. Early morning as it was, there was no one to be served anything, but a few sewadaars were preparing the first meal of the day. A man with a full black beard, towering height and glowing cheeks, was churning a ladle in a big utensil. Apart from him, an old man sat in a corner, skimming through the headlines of the day.
I asked him if he had daatan. He didn’t have any. It was then I noticed that I was in complete contrast to him. He was a pure rural, and I a born urban. His clothes and my clothes were metaphors of our opposite personalities. But we had a few things in common too: we were here for one purpose. And we both didn’t have a daatan.
Just when I was about to take a turn, he stopped me and said he did have toothpaste, and asked if it would do. I nodded my head and mumbled a “yes”. He paused his work and went behind the tent. During the two minutes he took there, I had a brief conversation with the old man reading newspaper. He queried about my place of residence, and what I wanted. The first man returned with a new toothpaste, and handed it to me.
As I took it from him, I told him that I would return the toothpaste in no more than two minutes.
His reply was in a perfectly natural tone, “No, no need to return. Use it and keep it there where you brush. It will help someone else.”
The reply astounded me, but I smiled and returned to my companions. They were amazed at how I had got a brand new pack of toothpaste for free. Since I didn’t have a brush, I applied some amount to my index finger and brushed my teeth.
The farmers’ protest hence taught me an important lesson about how an agitation could not be maintained without a spirit of commonwealth and sharing. Things were not to be hoarded and profited from, but to be used and passed on: and that’s exactly what I did with the toothpaste. I let it remain there on the wall near the taps. As I started walking away, I did notice some random baba ji picking it up and using it.
Glossary
Daatan – tooth-cleaning twig
Langar - a free communal kitchen
Sewadaars - voluntary workers
Baba ji – a respectful term for an old man
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