According to the Chambers, moustache is the thin hair upon the upper lip of man. All the standard dictionaries do shed light upon it, but leave much to be desired. These over-rated treatises are inexplicably silent upon some basic questions dealing with the shape, length, width, cuts, curves and angles of a standard moustache.
The thick moustache of our new RSS chief is a case in point. Mr. Mohanrao Bhagwat has too-wide, too-long and too-drooping whiskers. He should have properly trimmed them before facing the camera on the occasion of donning his new mantle.
It is quite obvious that while drinking water, he would have been feeling uncomfortable because of the ever-lengthening hair.
As we all know, he is on the hit-list of the disgusted and frustrated elements in the Saffron ranks, as the quite long BJP rule at New Delhi could not deliver what they had promised profusely.
My morbid feeling is today no set pattern is followed by the moustachioed. No material is available on moustache, its internationally accepted uses, frequent misuses and disgusting disuses. One feels there is a dire need of a full-fledged debate on this not-so-dry subject.
Our political parties can play a remarkable role on moustache. Instead of scarves and caps, various curvatious designs of the hairy growth on the lips can be used for political identification.
One does not know how and why moustache has been identified with valour. In my limited knowledge, moustache has little to do with bravery. In fact, most of the coward flaunt oversize moustaches.
Similarly, it has no relationship with masculinity. Usually the thinnest of the thin sport ferocious moustaches. Thus they try to compensate their in-built deficiency.
Our politicians would do well to shun moustaches. The argument behind this un-solicited piece of advice is: they have to compromise their position frequently.
Is an un-kept or well-kept moustache not something odd? Just think of a Vice-Chancellor or a Professor of a university or a cardiac surgeon sporting Manekshaw-like moustache!
Or think of a romantic poet or a political analyst or a literary critic or Editor or a newspaper frequently upping the ends of his fast greying moustaches!
Simultaneously – for the sake of objectivity – think of a Commander-in-chief, an Inspector-General of Police, or an I.G. Prisons, a Kotwal or a S.H.O. without moustaches.
Among our freedom fighters, Sardar Bhagat Singh’s small but sharp moustaches had, for a while, become legendary. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad too sported less-than-pronounced whiskers. But neither the Mahatma nor Nehru indulged in this upmanship. So was the case with Sardar Patel. But lesser fries like Gobind Vallabh Pant had moustaches, too-drooping, too-downwards as observers note in the case of Mr. Mohanrao Bhagwat.
Similar was the case of Tagore. Yes, Bhagwan Rajnish also.
Would Mr. Mohanrao Bhagwat mind being inofficiously advised from “suspect quarters” that sharp, pointed whiskers may help him discharge his onerous duties effortlessly. He faces threats not only from his own ungrateful progeny, but also from others. A ferocious whisker, they say, keeps the ill-intentioned away.