Back in 2005 or so, I was living in a small industrial town in Southern UP. I was around eight years old and had just finished watching a popular Malayalam movie — Meesa (Moustache) Madhavan — on TV. It was the story of a petty village thief, known for his signature move of twirling his thick moustache.
After I watched a new Malayalam movie, I’d translate it into Hindi and narrate it to my Hindi-speaking friends. Like always I began, by translating the name to Hindi — ‘Mooch Madhav’. What seemed like a fun name to me failed to amuse my friends. They couldn’t comprehend that the ‘hero’ of the movie had a moustache, to them that’s something more suited to the villain or the supporting characters. The concept that a moustache could be appealing was alien to them.
We then started looking around at the men around us. They would point out whenever we saw a man with a bare upper lip. And suddenly, the presence of hair on men’s upper lips — or the lack thereof — had started registering in my brain. And as it turned out, most of the men I’d known in UP did not sport a moustache. My friend’s parents, the young men riding bikes, and even Govinda, a Bollywood ‘hero’ who was all the rage then. I realized that I had grown up around moustached men. Well, at least those I saw daily — my father, his friends, my relatives back in Kerala.
Even in 2005, moustaches had started to go out of fashion in India, at least in the north of India. Beards weren’t as popular as today, but people with a moustache also seemed to have a beard to go with it. An unaccompanied moustache was becoming a rare sight. According to my friends, only the fashion-challenged men still sported one.
The updated folk knew the current cool. And back then, it was slicking your hair back with some gel. With each movie release, a fresh look took the spotlight. And the fall of the moustache must have begun this way too. It likely started fading away in the 80s. An entire generation grew up watching Rishi Kapoor, who probably made the clean-shaven look prominent in cinema. The one after that grew up watching Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and Govinda, and by this time the moustache was a rare sight on a lead. The Anil Kapoor fans were shrinking fast. The gradual rise of Western films was the goodbye kiss to the moustached male Indian hero.
But how much do actors influence what’s considered fashionable among the youth? In Bollywood, the last serious young character who sported a moustache was somebody in a cop movie. A solo moustache is still considered boring among the modern crowd in India today. More and more fathers and their sons choose to stay clean-shaven or accompany the moustache with a beard.
But that isn’t true for the whole country. The South has been very slow to react to the overarching fashion movement in the North. Walking through any South Indian city, you’d find more moustached faces than clean-shaven ones. Even among the younger men, a solo moustache is not an uncommon sight.
How could that be, did the trend-setting Bollywood movies fail to inspire the youth here to drive the change? Turns out, not quite. Bollywood movies have mostly failed to win the adoration of the Southern audience. While their stories were still relatable, the characters had strayed far from what was relatable to most South Indian people. Meanwhile, popular South Indian movies of the time still sported a relatable moustached ‘hero’.
Even today, many South Indian actors continue to sport a moustache, a style choice not limited to their on-screen characters. The people continue to hold on to their age-old cool rather than the imported trends. Down South, there’s a strong push to stick with conventional looks, so it usually takes a while before new trends catch on.
There was a time when my uncle had to shave his moustache for nasal surgery and refused to face people until it grew back. Social ridicule could be a big obstruction for older males who want to re-invent their looks. ‘Log kya kahenge’ is a much bigger hurdle for older men than their younger counterparts, who are not expected to conform to the standard appearance. Even older people in conservative societies may become socially conditioned to look a certain way.
The moustache, once associated with masculinity and valour is quickly losing popularity in present-day India. A clean shaved face has become the new ‘cool’ among a sea of moustached faces. As moustached men become increasingly rare in popular media, what was once a symbol of Indian identity is slowly fading away. Perhaps in some distant future when sporting a moustache becomes ‘cool’ among a sea of bare-lipped male faces, it might make a comeback and twirling a moustache would be cool once again.
