“Main pehele baar daari rakhne ka koshish kar raha hoon. Ek hapta barne diya aur phir aya. Abhi thora shape main lana hain. Abh thik time hain yeh, aur kuchh din baad aana chahiye tha?”
I’ve been trying grow a beard of late. Admittedly not for the first time in my life. That would have been more than twenty years back. We were dating and K wanted to see how I looked in a beard. I did not like how I looked. Nor did some of my colleagues. Nor my aunt who used to live in Mumbai then. The blasted thing would itch, but men have done a lot more than just not shaving for the sake of love. I bore it with remarkable fortitude. I heaved a sigh of relief when she finally said that I could shave it.
I was never interested in growing a beard. None of the men in my family had one. I doubt if any of the movie stars one looked up to, be it in Hollywood or Hindi cinema kept one, except Amitabh Bachchan in his Akhree Rasta, Shahenshah and Khuda Gawa days. A high percentage of the villains in Hindi films had beards! I doubt if any the of the sportsmen one was a fan of kept a beard. TV anchors did. Dr Prannoy Roy specifically…but you know… and then there was that line in one of the PG Wodehouse books, where Bertie Wooster referred to a beard he had grown as ‘face fungus,’ a growth that had shaken up even the usually inscrutable Jeeves.
Moustaches on the other hand were fairly prevalent and associated with machismo. A few attempts to grow one as a teenager never worked. One of my close buddies in school referred to mine as an ‘eedure khawa gop,’ A moustache which has been nibbled by a mouse. I never tried it after that.
There were certain days when one did not shave in college. Days when you wanted to sport what was called the ‘Devdas look.’ To express, without saying so in words, that you were a young man in er angst. Let’s leave it at that! I did not shave on Sundays till a few years back. Giving my face a rest from the blade was the idea. Then I started doing so. Perhaps because the growth had become more aggressive. I remember that my dad would shave twice a day. Every morning and on evenings when he had social engagements which was often. He was a nattier dresser than me with his suits, dress shirts and multiple shoes, while I am more a tee-shirt, jeans and sneaker/ sandal sort of guy. If pushed, I don’t mind a solid linen shirt. Yet, when it comes to shaving, I try to emulate my dad.
I had to change hairstylists at Dessange recently due to scheduling issues. Now before you start laughing at my use of the term hair stylist, given my scanty hair, let me add that this is what those who cut hair in the uni-sex salons of Vandre are called. Many of whom are women.
“My suggestion is to buzz your hair really short” said the new stylist who later told me that she had moved to Mumbai from Delhi to work. She loved the work culture here but felt she’d have to return once she got married and ‘had a family’ given the high rents here.
“The idea is to hardly leave anything. Then the scantiness will not be that visible.” Scanty is Bandra stylist speak for bald!
I managed to convince her not to do so as I was going to an award function that evening and was hoping to win. I did not want to shock people and myself with my sudden Kojack look. She gave in and I did win an award that evening!
“Next time we will make it short and the time after that really short,” she said as I left. “You should consider growing a beard. It will merge with your hair and the two can be the same length. That will help too.”
“I have seen people my age with beards. The beards are grey or white. Even if their hair is yet not so. And they look older than they would without it. Why would I want to do that,” I exclaimed.
She smiled and said, “Not at all. Designer beards are in. Salt and pepper is in. And you won’t even have to colour it. It will be natural.”
I decided to give it a shot. I grew my beard for a couple of days. It was still a stubble. K looked pensive and did not hold her counsel. Hopefully she realised that this was a more manageable mid-life crisis than my buying a Harley. I had to shave it on the third day. We were going to Colaba to shoot the next episodes of my show Every Bite Matters. I took a selfie first and sent it to my producer, Krishna, and wrote, ‘dari or no dari.’
I read his response. Quietly shaved. Set off for Colaba. Admittedly feeling lighter.
I went back for a haircut a few weeks later.
“We will go shorter this time. Is that OK?’
You do not argue with anyone holding a scissor close to your throat.
“Yes,” I said weakly.
“And next time we will go really short. Like 2. And what about the beard? You didn’t try it”
“I did, but it not work out as I had a shoot and shaved it for continuity.”
I could feel her disappointment weigh heavily in the air as she sighed, snipped and buzzed.
I finally got a window to experiment with my beard. K was travelling on a ten day work trip. I could not shoot last weekend as Krishna was inundated with work. So it was just me and the boys. I decided to give it a shot. As my beard grew, predictably white, Baby Loaf and Nimki hopefully felt happy that Daddy Loaf was beginning to look like them.
There was only one problem. My therapist and our yoga teacher had both focused on the importance of stepping out of home everyday to ensure good mental health. As had K, who said, “you have become a cat,” the last time she had gone for an equally long trip. She felt that I spent most of the time at home with the boys. “But there was no need to step out,” I argued but to no avail.
This time I went out and like how. Dinner at Andheri east? No problem. Another dinner at Andheri east? Groovy baby! Sunday lunch at Bandra before dinner at Andheri east? Bring it on. When I stepped out to buy meds, I walked down to the bakery to buy sourdough and stayed on to have a cortado there. On a rainy morning, I went and had breakfast at a cafe I had recently spotted by the sea. Even though going out in the morning seems like such an ordeal after the pandemic hit us and the subsequent lockdown house arrests. A friend wanted to come home for an espresso if I was free. I was happy to make time but suggested going out to a cafe instead. Instead of having lunch at home yesterday, I checked out another new cafe in our neighbourhood. Thankfully lunch was good.
I was on a mission. To boldly go where Kalyan would not go before. Outside of the house!
What’s this got to do with the beard, you ask? Good question
Well, people began to see me in different stages of fuzz. Most kept a measured silence. Yet I felt judged. And scratchy!
There is a big difference between twenty years back and now. Given the profusion of bearded men all around, beard grooming has become quite the thing. Everyone has buzzers at home, beard wax, beard shampoos and what not. I recently came across someone who is a year elder to me and who said that he kept a beard as he looks young otherwise. Hellooooo? Did I miss the memo about the human race not wanting to look younger than there age anymore?
Last night I googled ‘beard grooming’. Of course there was a youtube video on it. They lost me at, ‘if your face is square go for an oval line but if it is long…”. I had never looked at my face that way!
A friend of ours has two sons. Both young men who, like every other young man of this era (can you even distinguish between cricketers in the Indian cricket team anymore), have well shaped beards. I slid into the DMs of the elder one (sent a message on Instagram, in case you are of my age and thought I was playing ice hockey) and asked him, “yo, which is a good place to groom one’s beard? Regards, Kalyan.” (In case you didn’t get the uncle joke, this is a play on Steve Martin’s whatsapp messages to Selena Gomez in Only Murders in the Building). ‘Hi, where can one go to groom one’s beard, I am trying to keep one,’ is what I texted him.
“Freeda’s,” was his immediate response. Freeda was the first name thrown up during my Google search for ‘beard grooming in Bandra,’ last night.
And that’s how I ended up in Hashim Bhai’s able hands at Freeda this afternoon. I felt a bit conscious of being a newbie and possibly the only 48 year old beard virgin man in Bandra. He was also a bit different from the stylists one is used to. A wizened old fashioned barber. Comfortable in Hindi.
What Hashim Bhai had on his side, and the only thing that matters really, is expertise. He gently and kindly talked me through the process. When done, proceeded to trim and shape my side whiskers (ah, I can delay my next hair cut, I thought after having just paid a hefty credit card bill), the hair at the back of my head (which I did not have the heart to tell him had been left ‘natural’ and not straight on purpose) and even my nose hair (barbers are indeed a different breed from stylists)!
“Bas?” he asked. Done?
“Head massage,” I piped cheerfully. What followed was a near hour long, near full upper body massage, while I remained seated on the salon chair, very different from the rarefied hotel spas K and I love to for massages. I purred like a happy kitten. Interrupted only by #noorbanucooks who called wanting to know what to cook!
I left happy and after giving a generous (hope he agrees) tip and after fixing a date with Hashim Bhai 12 days later which is also the day after his weekly off.
“Do things which make you happy,”said my therapist during our online session a couple of days. Back pain had hit me, as it had last time K was away for a while. “Mamma is not home and the three (our two cats and me) of you are missing her and each of you are feeding on each other’s energies,” she said. Well Baby Loaf had begun to spray again and little Nimki had begun to spend an inordinate time under the bed cover over the past few says.
Arun sir of Sivananda Gurgaon reiterated the same at the end of his ‘anxiety and stress management’ course. To do things which made one happy and emphasised on the need to slow down.
Their perspectives helped me and the pain disappeared. Today was all about slowing down and doing what I liked.
I had a free day at work today. I did yoga nidra after breakfast as I was a bit sleepy. Something which perturbed Baby Loaf. He worries if either of us wakes up late and sleeps only when he sees us up. I had lunch and went to Freeda for the ‘deforestation’ as Mr Bison, a bearded teacher in school, would refer to his beard trimming… and then the lovely massage followed. I came back refreshed and slept for another hour and the boys joined me. There was something at work to attend to after that and I did so. Called my mum.
Then I sat to write. I wrote as if no-one was watching. If there is one thing that always makes me happy, it’s writing for you on my blog
Tell, me what was the last thing that you did that made you happy
