ON GROWING A BEARD
Khaliqur Rahman
If beard was a sign of wisdom, goats were wise, so goes the saying. But I grew mine out of sheer wisdom.
That is, to obviate the wrath and devastation of an unequal kind of the Indian blades upon my cheeks and wherever else it grows.
Foreign blades are ever so expensive. So, why waste money and your precious time on shaving. Moreover, beard is one thing that naturally comes to man. So, let it grow -- naturally. And, even the most fashionable men and sportsmen have recently grown or sported a beard. Kabir Bedi, for example, Brearely, the England captain in the recent past is another. Some of our own cricketers were wise with beards, at least for some time, and otherwise without them. If you had followed the Sri Lankan tour closely and Gavaskar still more so, you would have noticed his beard -- and he was amongst the runs. And more recently, Down Under, Coney and Kapil just couldn't cross (the) Border, for Allan had the beard and they were clean shaved!
But the LOH (mine, not Proudfoot's!) didn't like the idea. Over these years, she has always been married to smoothness. ''In a few months time my beard will be smooth, too", I told her, "Only if you could bear with me and the hostility of the early twigs. One should be able to take the rough with the smooth."
She wasn't happy. I had to tell her that most great and religious men had beards. "Most crooked characters, too", she added. "But there is always a world of difference between Prospero's beard on one side and Caliban's on the other, "I argued, relying, perhaps, a bit too much on her disciplining in Shakespeare.
She wasn't convinced and even I seemed to grow weak in my attempts to win her approval and at times weaker in my own resolve, especially during the first few weeks of farming the hirsute. It was terrible trying to overcome an entire cline of sensations -- tickling to itching to burning. It demanded a lot of courage and finger-work and I had almost decided to buy a new pack of foreign blades, no matter what they cost. What is money, compared to conjugal harmony? But then, I read Pritish Nandy's interview of Rajneesh. It gave me enough strength to hold on to mine. Rajneesh is so convincing on beards and women.
Recently, I read about Desmond Morris, the British ethologist and the author of the Naked Ape, one of the best sellers of the late sixties. In his Body Watching, to be published soon, he has said quite a few things about beards and 'moustaches'. Facial hair, according to him, is a kind of male flag and the beard's function is to signal masculinity. I do not, therefore, understand why men shave away this sign of virility and power, every morning. Perhaps, civilisation emphasised cooperation. Perhaps, the assertive male subconsciously began to damp down his primeval assertiveness. How sad !
But happily I have succeeded in maintaining mine which is well-formed and smooth now. And yesterday, I told my wife that quite a few of my women friends have asked me to shave, and to keep them at a beard's length, I have decided not to. She instantly pronounced for my beard her whole hearted support.
According to David Aston, manager of the Olympic hairdressing team, a good seven percent of the population grows beards. Make that 7,000...0001% , please !
