Moustaches are for flaunting

Perhaps nowhere is the moustache commoner than in India. And there’s probably far more variety here, too — from the thin, linear moustache popular in the South to the bristly, brush-like growth that’s favoured by our armed forces and cops, and from the impressive walrus moustaches of our rural elders to the ‘droopers’ that many like to sport, not forgetting the eye-catching monstrous whiskers of some aficionados that merit a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Then there’s Wing Commander V Abhinandan’s quaint ‘handlebars’ that gained wide publicity after the Balakot airstrike earlier this year. They are in a class of their own. Imaginatively shaped like the wings of his jet fighter, they do lend him an aura of fearlessness, nay invincibility.

Indeed, we must be the best exponents of the moustache globally and its most diligent growers, considering the ubiquity of this facial frill in India and the care and attention lavished on it. I sometimes wonder whether anyone has ever tried to gauge the total time spent in a year on meticulously grooming one’s moustache. The findings will probably make finicky moustache-fanciers like me wince!

Many opine that a suitable moustache enhances a man’s personality, adding to his manliness and even giving him an edge over those without one — a view the clean-shaven will hotly contest, no doubt. Does a moustache fuel, or rather inflate, a man’s ego? Oddly enough, I’ve noticed that some men’s egos (including my own!) seem to grow in direct proportion to the size of their moustaches! Incidentally, it’s believed that elephants flaunt their tusks much like men do their moustaches — as symbols of their masculinity.

Over the years, I’ve come across many awesome moustaches but none more so than a security guard’s in Munnar, my home-town. Muthiah’s walrus moustache is as luxuriant as it’s enormous and with his strapping 6-foot-plus frame in full regalia, he resembles a formidable dragon breathing fire. Yet, he’s as gentle as a lamb.

In the 1950s, I recall our school’s Hindi teacher had a moustache that uncannily resembled Adolf Hitler’s. It looked more like an oversized mole stuck below his sniffer, prompting us to nickname him ‘Hitler’ – a sobriquet he fully lived up to when he tyrannically wielded the cane.

I also knew a tea planter in Munnar who used to twirl his lush moustache upright to give him a fearsome look akin to Salvador Dali’s outlandish expression heightened by his surreal and perpendicular moustache.

Interestingly, shorn of the ‘shrubbery’ on his upper lip, doesn’t a chronic moustache-grower present an odd sight, looking more like a plucked chicken or a featherless fledgling? Indeed, sans a long-standing (or drooping!) moustache, a man does look ridiculous for a few days until one gets accustomed to seeing him in his new avatar.

Giving moustache-growing a hefty fillip comes the news that the Uttar Pradesh government is considering a proposal to hike the allowance for moustached cops from Rs 50 to Rs 250 — in an apparent bid to entice them to grow lusher ones. Surely, this should see a spurt in robust moustaches among the custodians of the law in the state and hopefully a decline in its spiralling crime graph. In the final analysis, isn’t a mammoth moustache intended to inspire awe and fear? Generally, hard-core moustache-growers opine that no man is complete without a hairy fringe adorning his upper lip — it’s as integral a part of him, they assert, like his clothes.

Some grow a moustache to ‘counterbalance’ a balding pate or to ‘mask’ a facial blemish or unsightly teeth. It’s probably vanity or narcissism that prompts us to grow one. Whatever be the reason, the moustache — as part of a man’s facial ‘finery’ — is here to stay and boost his ego sky-high!