I asked my mom and sister how to whiten my teeth.

Big mistake.

They started with my food habits, courtesy my very intelligent sister. The amount of junk food I ate. Condemned, criticized, and even damned for that, I quietly listened to all they had to say, like an ideal son/brother. And like an ideal son/brother, I paid no attention. They still didn't know I had a pizza almost every week, as I had no intentions of exploring the possibility of my mother disowning me.

I repeated my question, stressing the fact that I needed a "solution" to "whiten" my "already discoloured" teeth.

This time it was the amount I eat. Apparently, I ate too less.

I know. I want to understand how it landed here, but it somehow did.

It was my mom. Her idea: I let my hostelmates eat my meals because I'm "too kind" and "innocent". She probably imagined people at my hostel tying me to my bed while they took my money and spent that on food for themselves. And that's why I was getting leaner every week. I started to explain but realized the futility and the possible aftermath of that attempt.

"My teeth first. Please."

Didi listened. I asked her if there was some special way to brush your teeth which made it bright and shiny like the ones on TV. {By that time I was pretty sure the extra whiteners in Pepsodent needed some spell to activate and the 12 dentists in the Colgate advertisement were probably paid actors. I brushed twice daily and made it as hard as possible for my teeth. I WANTED them white.} "Harder", my sister suggested, at which point I reminded her discoloured teeth were better than no teeth. Mom's favourite word was "tartar" and she did not hide that fact. They were at least on correct lines.

"Lemon juice", mom said. This was official now. Lemon juice for everything. You want shiny hair, apply lemon juice. You need fairer skin, lemon juice. Got a severe stomach ache? Have too many pimples? Blisters? Constipation? Broken bones? Cancer? Try some lemon juice.

Then, I had this from my sister:

"Take some almonds. Soak them overnight. Eat the almonds and dry their chhilkas. Crush them and use as tooth-powder."

What. The. Hell.

"Rub your teeth with salt, but it tastes awful". Now they were coming to something, since I'd heard of this salt thing before. Awful taste my a**, I wanted bright teeth. Besides, these 32 soldiers have lived tougher times (ha).

Before they could come to the number of times I'm supposed to bathe in summers, I made some lame excuse and left, with images of bruised gums with glistening white teeth in my mind. Beautiful.