Daadhi Uncool!
If you think this is about the futile attempts to find Osama, sorry, have better things to write about. Alternately if you thought this is about the attempt to find vegetated faces then read on, you might just find something worthwhile.
My first encounter with beards occurred at the age of three. The first feared person, someone who my parents used to scare me into obeying things, had a beard. He used to stay in the vicinity and looked like he could gobble up anybody with his thick beard. As fear gave way to adolescent curiosity, the need for a moustache was prime but the fascination with the beard only grew. Especially at saloons when hirsute uncles around with thick moustaches and dense beards used to look much more in control that a meek me sitting in a corner. My admiration for the genuine care that went into the beard only grew with each visit. There was an art attached to it and sadly enough I didn’t even have the raw material.
After a lot of prayer and puberty, a thin moustache adorned my face. It was an inconsequential line, as if drawn with a worn out HB pencil. I used to track its Hindu rate of growth with a magnifying glass, which tells you the rate at which it was growing. The faster ones onto adulthood in my class had better moustaches and could pass themselves off as full grown men in saloons. No such luck for me.
A few years later when I realized the relatively low value of the moustache I still felt the deep desire in me to grow a beard, rather be capable of having a beard if need be. As all men and most women might know, growing a beard is not easy, especially when the only hair on your face is all lined up above your upper lip. Amateurish suggestions like shave well only then will hair grow was a bit like telling a farmer to till harder if he wanted to make barren land flower. After many a shaving cream brand and many a plough on the face, I declared my face barren. All attempts at beard were to stop.
Now when I look around I don’ see any men with beard. The metro sexual mania has made the moustache mundane and the beard non existent. Silky smooth faces of chikna men are the order of the day. Osama and his kin have done their bit in de-marketing the beard. My aspirations remain though.
My first encounter with beards occurred at the age of three. The first feared person, someone who my parents used to scare me into obeying things, had a beard. He used to stay in the vicinity and looked like he could gobble up anybody with his thick beard. As fear gave way to adolescent curiosity, the need for a moustache was prime but the fascination with the beard only grew. Especially at saloons when hirsute uncles around with thick moustaches and dense beards used to look much more in control that a meek me sitting in a corner. My admiration for the genuine care that went into the beard only grew with each visit. There was an art attached to it and sadly enough I didn’t even have the raw material.
After a lot of prayer and puberty, a thin moustache adorned my face. It was an inconsequential line, as if drawn with a worn out HB pencil. I used to track its Hindu rate of growth with a magnifying glass, which tells you the rate at which it was growing. The faster ones onto adulthood in my class had better moustaches and could pass themselves off as full grown men in saloons. No such luck for me.
A few years later when I realized the relatively low value of the moustache I still felt the deep desire in me to grow a beard, rather be capable of having a beard if need be. As all men and most women might know, growing a beard is not easy, especially when the only hair on your face is all lined up above your upper lip. Amateurish suggestions like shave well only then will hair grow was a bit like telling a farmer to till harder if he wanted to make barren land flower. After many a shaving cream brand and many a plough on the face, I declared my face barren. All attempts at beard were to stop.
Now when I look around I don’ see any men with beard. The metro sexual mania has made the moustache mundane and the beard non existent. Silky smooth faces of chikna men are the order of the day. Osama and his kin have done their bit in de-marketing the beard. My aspirations remain though.
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