BENGALURU: For many people, a visit to the dentist involves x-rays, casts, the reclaining chair, and nightmares of drills and root canals – and big bills. But for a certain clientele, there are cheaper options.Sometime in the early 1970s, a man named Mehboob Sahib came to Bengaluru from the town of Vellore in Tamil Nadu. He had a cheap black suit case, and he stationed himself in the shadow of the Jamia Masjid in KR Market . The suitcase, as people from that time remember, was full of fake teeth and dental equipment. Mehboob Sahib soon became famous in the area. The word went that if you wanted those paan stains cleaned from your teeth, and make them toothpaste advertisement white – for a price that you could actually afford, Sahib was the man to see. For Rs 5, he could have those yellow-brown dentitions turn pearly white.Over the years, Sahib prospered. The chair by the Jamia Masjid soon became a street side dental services establishment. Business was so good that soon he needed assistants to help him handle the workload. Old timers still remember the sight of a grey haired Saheb at work on his customer, while a group of boys buzzed around him, waiting for and carrying out his instructions.One of them was Allah Bakash, now 59. “Like many others, I was fascinated by his work and joined him as an assistant. He taught dental work to several of us – and now most of us run our own street side outfits. A lot of us are still here in the city market area. Others have gone to other parts of Bengaluru,” he says.A tradition of economyIt’s nothing short of quackery but these street dental workers have roadside establishments, and have a regular stream of customers. Their clientele come from everywhere – from Mangaluru to Mumbai, from Koppal to Kolar. What they’ve learnt hasn’t come from any textbook or journal, but is the result of continuous on-the-job training. They are the ‘ dentists to the poor’.On a warm Wednesday afternoon, a BMTC bus screeches to a stop near Bakash’s office and consulting chamber – his navy blue chair surrounded by display cases full of artificial teeth and dental tools. There’s a vinyl banner that serves as his official signboard, and it – like any dentist’s office, is full of pictures of teeth as they look before and after Bakash’s dental services. Bakash’s wife Nagina from Shivamoga is with him. The couple met and fell in love during Bakash’s work visit to her village in the 1980. She moved to Bengaluru with Bakash after their nuptials and now assists him at work under the Mysore Road flyover.There are at least eight such street dentists in the market area. Most of them were once Saheb’s assistants, and they carry on his tradition of low cost dental work.False teeth onlyThese street side dentists are very clear that they don’t do extractions or root canals – or anything that would require serious endodontic work. You get the feeling that these things were done too, in the past but medical complications had created hassles. Now, they focus on teeth polishing and fixing false teeth. “We tell customers with serious dental problems that they need to consult a qualified dentist,” says Afsal Pasha. Pasha is still in his late teens, but has been providing dental services for a while now. “Most of our customers are the load men, drivers, vendors, shopkeepers and bus passengers who frequent this area. We also have regular customers who come all the way from Shivamogga, Mysuru, Dharwad and Mangaluru to fix their teeth. They also come back for regular check-ups. People from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra also come here every year,” he says.These dental workers also enjoy a high level of customer loyalty. It’s not surprising, as these “dentists” are careful to stay in contact with their customers, often enquiring after difficult cases and providing advice via mobile. “I’d lost four of my upper front teeth and three of my lower teeth as a result of an accident. I was completely disheartened as I looked terrible. I couldn’t afford a dental procedure to fix the problem. Four years ago I happened to come to KR Market on work and saw one of the shops. Reluctantly, I opted to use false teeth but after that my smile and life have changed. I even got married,” beams K Siddana, a trader from Koratagere in Tumakuru, proudly showing off the results of his procedure.For some like Gulab Jan from Devarjeevanahalli, these dental workers are real saviours. “I was severely diabetic as a result of which most of my teeth fell off, forcing me to have only liquid food for a few years. A neighbour advised to visit KR Market and now I have fixed 16 teeth and have started eating some good food once again,” says Jan, a Congress party worker visiting the establishment of Imran Pasha, a dental worker near the flower market.According to Saroja, a cobbler at the Shivajinagar bus terminus, the city market dental workers are unique. “Up until 2014, there was a person who used to fix teeth outside the St. Mary's church but he passed away. Now there is no place other than the city market where people can go to get fitted out with a good duplicate set of teeth. Regular hospitals are expensive and can’t really connect to people like us,” said the 50-year-old.Process and ProcedureEvery patient has to undergo a thorough investigation to determine the problem, just like in a regular medical establishment. However, the tools are different here. Fixing false teeth, for example, takes around 15 minutes, often less. “We use a red-coloured wax to create a cast of the missing tooth or teeth and find a match from the set of acrylic teeth we have. The dentures are fitted accordingly into the gums after the artificial tooth is sawn down to the right size. The patient is given some food items to bite in to and some water to drink to ascertain if the job is well-done, to their satisfaction,” says 37-year-old Ajaz Pasha. Pasha also dispenses the usual statutory warnings - daily brushing, hot water gargles and staying away from tobacco until the tooth is set.The eight workers at the market operate every day from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., and they have an unwritten agreement on not charging their clients more than Rs 100 for a tooth. “Some people who come to us can’t even afford a few 100 rupees. But we often complete the job for whatever they can offer. At times it is simple work. More importantly, it provides us a lot of satisfaction to see the relieved and happy smiles of patients,” says Allah Bakash.