Memoirs of a Meesha

The origins of facial hair are quite obvious: early man had bigger priorities than fashioning a razor. And the origins of the removal of aforementioned facial hair are also quite obvious: Supporting a certified biosphere on ones face could not have been comfortable.And it must have been a rather virulent biosphere indeed to warrant the steep leap of faith involved in applying sharp item on soft face- especially with the high probability of surprise mountain lion/cave bear attacks causing a fatal slip of the hand. (But then again, in the event of such a surprise, better ear-less/nose-less than lifeless.) In either case, the true mystery lies in the genesis of the mustache. What induced the freshly shaving man to leave behind patches of hair on his face? Is it because applying the razor under his nose also took off inches from it? Was it to conceal his deplorable dental condition? Or to strain the water of its questionable additions as he sipped from the river? Or was to mutter expletives into its dark fronds, safe in the knowledge that CaveMama can't hear or see what you just called her cooking? The practical uses of the bit of fluff may still be within the scope of our imagination, but the cultural and symbolic significance the mouth-wig achieved within the course of civilisation is beyond logic! Instead of coming up with hair-brained ideas let us hear it from the horse's mouth. I present, the distinguished mouthpiece of the man-kind: the Moustache!

Behold! I am the moustache! Observe-my glorious crest descending in a swaggering incline of inky black ending in perfectly symmetrical nifty, upward curl. Magnificent am I not?And it is not merely my considerable beauty that underscores my opulent charm-  civilisations have been supported on the sturdy loop of my dark wings!

Let me describe the illustrious history of this lustrous specimen.The first mouche to sprout up in the archives adorned the lips of a Scythian horseman riding across a wall painting. Following which they began popping up everywhere. Apparently it was total rage with the Mesopotamians, who often teamed it up with flowing beards. Sure the Egyptians still walked about bald faced,but what can you expect from them-their gods had animal heads forgodsakes!In India the virulence of your mustache growth symbolised great vigour. Young boys waited impatiently for us to grace their upper lips. Facial-hair deprived men sighed in sadness wishing for a better fate (it is a wonder they didn't drive themselves to this option)  while those graced with our flowing presence caressed us lovingly. And women, the poor dears, were so overwhelmed by our obvious glory they couldn't bear it: they literally ripped us off their upper lips. (They may give you some other story, but now you know the truth);A hairy upper lip was a sign of virility, dynamism and what the patroness of this blog would call 'dudeness'. But, as a great man once said, uneasy lies the upperlip that wears the crown.Our hairiditory magnificence was a source of jealous pride.With our beauty came the curse of honor.A half shaved moustache was the height of insult.Lesser men envied those blessed with our glory, resenting our dramatic presence. Bloody feuds were fought over insults thrown at our regal splendour.

Through most of twentieth century we clung tenaciously to stiff-upper lips and were lovingly smoothed by brilliant detectives and PIs. We graced the dashing smiles of dandies who frankly didn't give a damn and were waxed eloquently by iconic artists who dallied with the very creme de la creme of  the age.We were broodingly combed by philosophers who went beyond good and evil or lent sternness to others with weak mouths or lay in glorious state upon the lips of some who believed they had a superior mission. We bracketed  and augmented comic relief. We were, perhaps, the most dynamic fashion statement a man could make.But such an age was too glorious to last.


The 21st century saw a baldfaced betrayal of the Mustachio Creed. No longer embraced by the mainstream, only a particularly confident or careless upperlip  would acquiesce to carry our weight. The metro sexual male found other outlets for facial hair grooming, like the detestable chin fungus called a "soul-patch" (more like a soul-blight) Beards of different sizes and shapes began to return to the face, but the poor mustache began to be seen as a mark of provinciality--doomed to the likes of Texan steerherders or Mexican wranglers. Even our stalwart patrons, the Malayalees, are beginning to withdraw their support, moving towards a clean-shaven look rather than the favored face-ornament of yore. Even the proprietor of this blog is only allowing this lament because her father happens to sport a particularly virulent mouche! We are forced to perch precariously on available upper lips, forever wary of the blade.

Weep ye mortals-- not for the fallen mustache, but yourselves. We used to be enough to mark a man's manhood. It didn't matter if you had the cheapest car, or whether your daughter worked or if your son took up fashion designing, or if there are people kissing in front of you-- your mustache would have established your credibility. Now what will the poor man do to prove himself?His security, once so prominent and worn bravely in the middle of his visage, now flounders in the face of so many new things, exposing his vulnerable upper lip to everything!

Perhaps, it is inevitable. We could not have protected the substance of manhood forever. It is only natural that the cycle turns and the baton is passed. We learn to enjoy the few months when we sprout on young lips and lead our charges into shaven puberty and decline with grace. We only hope that our replacement will be as tangible as we have been. Mankind is a wayward race, easily distracted and ready to take offence. They have outgrown us, but we hope that they have grown up in the process.
We thank the kind readers who have patiently listened to our plaint

(It's just) One Day Matram aka The Confessions of an Incurable Optimist

Forgive the mallu-wordplay in the title. The pun was irresistible.

This blog has seen many a post certifying my flagrant fraud-malluness. But this post isn't one of them. (Thankfully.)

The thing about growing up in another country-- besides the obvious diasporic confusions of being and belonging-- is that it tends to make one's  perspective on the motherland rather bipolar: either you are myopic to her faults or supremely nearsighted. And when you've grown up in Kuwait which, no offense, is the urban answer to Yoknapatawpha, you have every opportunity to foster these fallacies. Which would explain why,regardless of knowing better and daily proof of dissipation, one still finds ones heart swelling just a little bit on Independence Day.

Actually, it was never Independence Day that got any attention. That was reserved for Republic Day. Each of the Indian schools in Kuwait sent choirs (which, by the way, often consisted of SriLankans, Bangladeshis and the occasional Afghani besides Indians-- a microcosm of the subcontinent, don't you think) to the Indian Embassy with its imposing red-sandstone grandeur, to provide the patriotic background score for the flag-hoisting on the inevitably freezing January morning of the 26th. The Republic Day had the drama of unsaid competition between schools, the grueling ritual of group practices ( and the fun that follows), the simulated sense of purpose that comes from dragging yourself out of bed and into perfectly worn uniforms ( and, in my case, taming the hair into prosaic dignity rather than poetic frenzy)  at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am in a desert Winter, and-- perhaps as a result of this simulated sense of purpose-- an incredible sense of pride and joy when you see the flag climb up the pole. That , and the after program-snack box, of course.( usually a slice of fruitcake, a veg sandwich and juice)

Independence Day, on the other hand, came during the fading days of our summer holidays. We are too busy running around getting our fill of field, fallow, food  and lazing around while contemplating the ephemeral nature of holidays to think about celebrating in any sense. Travelling was discouraged because of clogging traffic. (Though there was this one time we had to go somewhere on the 15th and I got to see a 12yr old Gandhiji with a pappadam-based bald-pate trying to cross the road with an equally juvenile Nehru.)
Our entertainment was mostly confined to the screenings of Roja and Mr.India on the T.V-- if it was working. If it was not, then Independence Day made itself known through the blaring loudspeaker from the village school that burped out patriotic songs from another era. As you can see, not the most exciting holiday. It wasn't even a real holiday.

Coming to India gave me cognitive-spectacles that greatly remedied my ideological myopia. It is impossible to live in a country and not see its faults. And we know that India tends to be over abundant in that category. I also realised that so few of  us 'educated' and 'informed' citizens wanted anything to do with our country. Unfettered by NCERT censored text books, we find that Gandhiji, while an excellent statesman and a great idealist, was also a little off the deep end. Nehru  may have been Chacha Nehru, but that's not all he cha-chaed  with.  Poor confused India, flounders like a rudderless boat grappling with alien democracy it never got the hang of, parading her penchant for dynastic rule in  ballot box choices which bowed to inevitable evil either of the necessary/familiar kind, or the next best alternative, or whichever party offers the better deal in terms of material benefits like two kgs of rice, a sari and a bottle. Somewhere you start to think that democracy was never a good idea. That dissent is too wearisome and that 'choice', the fundamental premise of freedom, is just not worth it.

Everyday we shrug at idealism with studied apathy, our psyches are flogged by multiple proof of corruption running rampant and the anarchy meted out by administrations. Everyday we find new examples of atrocious mismanagement and inconsideration. Everyday we find one more reason to wash our hands off our state and fall a little more in our own eyes. Every day we find ourselves giving up on the idea of freedom, forgetting that this is what freedom is-- the inability to blame anyone else and the burden of carrying on by yourself. Freedom is a myth, it always comes at the cost of some other kind of liberty. But freedom in whatever form is something to be savored.  It may be screwed up, but it's our screwed up.

Too blind, perhaps? True, very true. The arguments against what I just wrote create an Indian Parliament worthy cacophony in my head. But I silence them with the single thought that 364 days of the year these arguments reign supreme. For just one day let us see our country as they saw it on that fateful midnight hour when we made our tryst with destiny-- with hope. They were not fighting for a section, or for a position. They fought for 'freedom'. The freedom to make choices, whether a physical one like entering a certain compartment, or a tertiary one like applying for a certain jobs, or the freedom to have a stand and to maintain it. The freedom to go where one wants, to be what one is (whatever that might be) while allowing other freedoms to exist. The times we live in give us very little affirmation of this hope, but for just one day let us try to see it as a possibility rather than an improbable pipe-dream. For just one day, let us free ourselves from our self-proclaimed cynicism and hope like they once hoped that our country will indeed awaken to that heaven of freedom. Because, that is what they fought for, that is the freedom we have-- the freedom to dream of "One day... someday".

Happy Independence Day

Tech Support

Apologies in advance. It started out small and then grew out of control before anything could be done. Much like the Author's gizmo-collection.

Most of those who have the dubious fortune of acquaintance-ship with the Author know that she is what is known as a "techno-dud of epic proportions". It is quite possible that her genealogy may be traced back to that particular line of neanderthals who were most loath to move away from beloved rock and stick and move on to iron tools. Whether they are phones, computers or ipods, gadgets fail to garner interest.

This ambivalence is not entirely without reason. From an early age it was drilled into me that technology was way more trouble than it was worth. This line of thought was nurtured by the fact that a) I studied in a school where most electrical implements were guaranteed to malfunction. Especially when you need them to work. b) Whenever something went wrong with the TV/ Computer and later the mobile, the first reaction of the adults was "What did you do?!"(Though in all honesty they are not entirely to blame; every once in a while we really WERE the cause.) Of course neither of these factors deterred my brother from turning into a connoisseur of electronic excellence, but he is the exception in our family's general trend of gaping ignorance in all things gizmo-like.

Perhaps the beginning of the change was when I first left home. The momentous leap from school to farway college and consequent hostel-dom made the acquisition of erstwhile avoided cell-phone inevitable. This foray into the alien practices was still limited to basic applications- bluetooth and other colour-coded activities did not register in the list of phoney skills. The mobile situation did, however, teach my mother and myself the fine art of texting. My father on the other hand remained steadfastly disinclined (in fact, it took at least 5 years and a rather troublesome episode in the airport for him to finally condescend to carry a mobile phone). Be that as it may, the initiation into the tech-world convinced the family that there was some profit in discovering the New World of gadgetry. And who better to experiment than the eldest far away.The years that followed were characterised by tenaciously typed typo-riddled texts, several backfired or missed phone calls, painfully saved and lost data, terrified panic attacks at having pressed the wrong button and thinly veiled threats of family funded technological upgrades which were constantly and firmly rebuffed. I really didn't want more equipment than I already had and went to great lengths to dissuade my parents from appliance-benevolence. I recall a sleepy afternoon, made sleepier still by my monologue on the travails of fighting off electronic instruments, when Sirgit turned around and asked me quite seriously, "Are you crazy?" I suppose to the general public such an anti-gadget stance seems strange. The fact is, these things were a necessity, and the ancestry of the the thing's circuitry did little to electrify my interest. Plus, they scared me-there are either too many buttons, or none at all!

For all my fighting against the industrial revolution of my mechanical life, in the course of eight years my family has managed to press upon me a digital camera (beloved Digi, who I still refuse to part with regardless of her obvious decrepitude), a laptop (Zephyr of the fried right-click fame, a comrade without whom my M.A-Ph.D life would be unthinkable.), mp3 players (beloved Tony I and later, when he kicked the bucket, Tony II, partner to all my journeys, rainscapades, and miscellaneous occasions that require a soundtrack- including but not limited to assignment submission, frenzied cleaning, angry walks in the middle of the night or simply the middle of the night.). A small external hard-drive (Satine of the glossy black skin and insufficient disk space for all my music), a big external hard-drive (Passepartout, named after the super-resourceful right-hand of the intrepid Phileas Fogg, but mostly because he declared himself Passport when first plugged in). And of course my sturdy Nokia (who is called just that because to call her anything else detracts from her impervious, super-toughness. It would be like calling the Rock, Dwayne Johnson.) As you can see, I have been quite effective.

This appliance-boom has also seen a congruent techno-improvement on the family side. My brother, who was never held back by the debilitating tech-fear as I was, is a certified expert on all things electronic. My mother has scaled great heights of telephone and internet competence by being proficient at not only texting and telephoning, but also at navigating the world wide web with a fair amount of confidence. Even the Pater, averse as he is to any kind of telephone related duties, has , of late begun to frame full sentences in the messaging/mailing scheme. This is a truly momentous development considering my father's typing episodes usually entail long spells of searching for the right key, getting worked-up if the screen throws something he wasn't expecting (eg: a pop-up ad, a new tab, the wrong letter.) and finally throwing up his hands in frustration and badgering one of us to write the godforsaken thing on his behalf.
But apparently things have really changed.
My Father suggested we take to chatting online.

The temptation to vigorously clean my ears and keep repeating "huh?" was the overriding reaction when my mother relayed the conversation. Several sputters later, I heard the explanation. "With the situation in Kuwait being the way it is, the officials are cracking down on the online-phone calls. The mobile keeps running out of charge and balance. This way he can talk to us consistently."

The image of my father hunched over the keyboard, forehead creased in concentration, hitting one slow, painful key at a time flashes in my mind.

When I first left home, everyday  for the first three months would see a meticulously typed text and a phone call in the evening. Every break was punctuated with extensive photo sessions and concentrated memory-making. The advent of internet facilities brought the laptop. The burgeoning work and data brought the hard-drives, and my family's unflagging and sometimes misplaced appreciation for my music- the mp3 players. And even now, a veteran of transits, moves and farewells I find myself supported, whether I want it or not. 

Robert Frost wrote "Home is the place where,/ when you have to  go there,/ they have to take you in." With some luck and a lot of love, I have been able to fashion home everywhere I went. And I have the great good fortune of incredibly reliable, albeit occasionally over-enthusiastic tech-support from head-office. But then it wouldn't be the same without that over-zealous element, now would it?

This time they got me a new phone. Oh God!