On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 7:13 PM, . <[email protected]> wrote: > > In the > south, I've noticed every tom, dick and harry sporting fuzz,
You mean Tom, Dick, and Hairy! > even if > it makes him look ridiculous. No really, it does not suit everyone. I think that "suiting" someone is also a matter of opinion. Let someone come in with a newly-created beard and simultaneously there will be positive and negative reactions. It seems to be what one is used to....I find that women who have grown with clean-shaven men would like more of the same, and those who have families where the male members and friends have beards/mouches, don't mind them or like them. My thoughts on beards.... However different a man may look with the addition or subtraction of facial hair, a woman does get used to it, and a change once again jolts her! I used to find the moustache of an actor called Amol Palekar very funny, but he looked even funnier when, for a movie called Golmaal, he took it off in one part of a double role. Wodehouse has a description, again somewhere (no precise footnotes for me) where a character is zapped by a "vast expanse of upper lip" where a moustache used to be. Yep, one needs that personality** to carry off the facial fuzz, long unkempt hair, the grunge look, the groomed unkept look or even a tattoo for that matter. I agree, sometimes one feels that instead of the man "carrying off" the facial hair, it would be better to call in a barber to carry it off. What about the shaven-head look with a beard that I often find? (No, I am not thinking of anyone specific...) I once made a blogpost about this.... I am still fascinated by watching a man with a moustache drink soup, or even better, eat rasam-shaatham (can't translate this for the non-Tamizh, it's a very liquidy, runny part of a south Indian meal) off a banana leaf....I found it interesting to note that many sculptures in the Madurai Meenakshi Amman temple have figures with beards of different shapes and sizes; but the Hinu Gods seem to be clean-shaven...unless they are hermits like Parashurama. Why is the Buddha depicted as a wanderer with long locks, but clean-shaven always? I am also reminded of the man who dyed his beard, and when asked why his hair was white and his beard was black, explained that his beard had been born 15 years after his hair.... I wonder, too, what Veerappan-the-sandalwood-bandit would have contributed to this conversation. A cousin of mine once referred to a moustache as "mookkula kudumi" or kudumi on the nose(Kudumi being the tuft of hair "choti" in Hindi) that men used to sport on their otherwise shaven heads, especially the Brahmin caste.) Cheers, and wishing everyone health, happiness, and peace of mind in 2009, Deepa.
