Where have all the moustaches gone?

Hankering after mankind’s lost glory

According to conservative estimates, nearly a thousand species have gone extinct in the last 500 years alone. Looming large as the next item on the list of endangered species, we have that ultimate symbol of masculinity – the moustache. If the unspeakable happens, this time there will be no blaming Mother Nature either. We are teetering on the brink of the most serious biodiversity disaster in living memory, and we are solely to blame for it.

You may be wondering if it’s really that bad. Sure, there are plenty of moustaches still going around, but the bulk of them are accounted for by pockets comprising rural areas of some developing nations, where they are still (rightly) regarded as emblems of masculinity. Ask yourself how many of your urban acquaintances under 30 sport a moustache. How many actors, sportsmen, even newscasters do you see with moustaches? Make no mistake, with the passing of the current generation, a completely moustache-less world is starting us in the face.

It’s amazing how quickly the stock of the moustache has fallen. In our country it was holding its own till as recently as the early 90s. I vividly recall a much more diverse – and manlier – scene in my childhood and adolescence.

Why should we be concerned, you ask? Well, diversity is the essence of all existence, and that’s what makes life bearable – some say beautiful. There’s no reason the male face should be any different. There is only one kind of clean-shaven. Contrast this monotony with the options available to a man with a moustache – you have the Dear Watson, the Clark Gable, the Reinhardt, and so many more – and the countless distinct fashion statements that can be made. But the interest of diversity is only served if it’s a standalone moustache; moustaches that come with beards don’t quite fit the bill. Now I have nothing against beards (in fact I happen to sport one these days); it’s just that, as a rule, beards offset the positives of standalone moustaches. A world with all bearded men will be at least as boring as a world with all clean-shaven men.

In case concepts like aesthetics and diversity are too fancy for you, here are a few benefits of moustaches that no practical man-of-the-world will be able to dispute:

Gravitas is an indispensable quality for fathers and husbands, who have to be stern in order to properly discipline their charges. In fact, in every household there must be a leader who sends a clear signal that he means business, and it will be ill-advised to test his resolve. It has been observed by shrewd students of human psychology that children and women are apt to take advantage of the absence of this signal. Now, nothing confers gravitas upon a man quite like a moustache does. Here too, a moustache is rarely if ever not a victim of the beard because the beard, quite far from enhancing it, clutters this signal. With beards, it is often the unfortunate case of not being able to see the tree for the forest. (Of course, with clean-shaven men it’s even worse – there’s no such signal to begin with.)

Moustaches also help to enhance that other crucial male quality – physical agility. The Bard warned long ago that sorrows seldom came as single spies. Crises for the modern man are no exception. So it is that receding hairlines (a male crisis if ever there was one!) become alarming at about the same time when men start to grow a spare tire around their waists. The effect of the twain is to drastically lower a man’s center of gravity, which seriously reduces his mobility. That’s where a moustache (if there is one) restores the centre of gravity to levels fit for an always-on-his-toes man. The beauty is that you can always add mass to your moustache depending on how much the centre needs to be raised. Or remove it, for that matter, should, by some miracle, your hairline start to un-recede.

A moustache can also function as a hobby, a toy, and an anxiety-relief mechanism. If you have one, you can spend your leisure time nurturing it or just playing with it, instead of indulging in other dangerous activities. When watching a thrilling match, you can dissipate the tension by simply stroking your moustache, instead of ruining your fingernails, or worse.

Now that I have demonstrated that it’s a poorer world inasmuch as the popularity of moustaches has declined, it follows that we need to urgently arrest and reverse the trend. However, before plotting the revival of moustaches, honesty behooves me to admit that my own contribution to the cause has been less than notable. Lest I am accused of not having my money where my mouth is, a few words of autobiography are in order. I grew up with all the right ideas about the significance of the moustache. But at the very outset, I found out, to my chagrin, that my moustache resembled a bicycle’s handle to a very embarrassing degree. And we are talking about no sleek sports-bike either; instead, the old-fashioned Sohrab. If every moustache sends a signal, and there can be no doubt that it does, mine was sending a very anachronous and unprogressive signal. I was left with no option but to start supporting the institution from without, so to speak.

This painful confession out of the way, we can now come to the question of renaissance of the moustache. This campaign has to be a multipronged affair. The media and the civil society need to play their part. Advertisers and film directors need to start casting leading men with moustaches. Public service messages on TV and radio, and NGOs raising public awareness through seminars will definitely be needed. That’s where philanthropists need to raise their hands and be counted. The federal government needs to contribute with incentives in the form of moustache allowances or tax waivers.

But if the moustache is to stage a dramatic comeback, it is the ladies that have perhaps the biggest part to play. Their role, as facilitator or enabler, cannot be over-emphasised. Mothers and grandmothers, like the days of yore, need to extol the virtues of the moustache to their sons and grandsons through their formative years. Potential mothers-in-law need to welcome the prospect of sons-in-law with bushy upper-lips. Last but not the least, fair maidens need to immediately stop opting for cute instead of manly. Whatever happened to ‘opposites attract’?

It will indeed be a sad day when our progeny will have to visit a museum in order to see a moustache. We therefore owe it to the next generation not to let the moustache die out.

PS: The author is vehemently against female moustaches.