The rise of great Indian beard
At times you can’t ignore certain striking changes happening around you. Half of Indian cricket team is with beard. You see make models in advertisements with beards, you gang up with your friends, the make friends have beards, you visit your cousin he takes more time to get ready, his table is lined up with all beard styling products beard wax, bear softener, beard balm. Then you see the front page newspaper ad, of Pan Parag with Pierce Bronson then another news headline beard grooming industry has reached 100 cores. Then you hear about events such as “Movember”, No shave November, where Indian men enthusiastically run in Beardathons, to raise cancer awareness. I was happily intrigued by this hairy change and this inquisitiveness was the reason for my research which stemmed out of otherwise and outwardly frivolous looking trend of men keeping beard.
As every research, starts with a problem statement as to why this research, Mine too started with the question that is that the men started to keeping beard, is just a style statement or an accessory or there is a deeper underlying hidden phenomenon triggering this rising trend.
Now India is no stranger to beards. In Indian culture beard comes with its associated symbolism of wisdom and aestheticism. Saints, religious leaders, yogis from India historical past, all could be seen sporting great beards. But in post independence India the popular curled up moustache could be seen on and off which perhaps signifies the cultural symbolism of virility or machismo for the patriarchal Indian man.
Indian men had kind of forgotten beard somehow. My research revealed that it was not until 2015 that Indian men started to keep beard of all sorts sizes design and it turned for the Indian man a full blown obsession and by now in 2018 it has gone fully, mainstream, that even corporate office have no issues with make employees coming to offices with designer or full grown beards. Indians have for long got inspired by western trends be the blue jeans or the neon T-shirts or the purple hair color. This is a snowball effect rising from a global phenomena starting from the west and percolating fully to the east. And now in India the youth icons such as Virat Kohli, Ranveer Singh could be seen sporting full beards, chin straps, extended goatees.
Let’s look at the results of my interviews with around 50 men in few Indian urban cities.
Now different men have different reasons to keep beards
Beard makes me look mature bold and confident. This and similar statements were given by 22% of Indian men I interviewed.
My girlfriend asked me to keep it and I got to know that females these days prefer beards. 27% of men gave this reason for keeping the beard.
28% of the men said “I wanted to change my look and wanted to experiment. When I kept it suited me got compliments and then retained it. Beard is in fashion, so I wanted to try it”
Other reasons given were “I wanted to look different from the rest”, “I am a non conformist”. And “beard helps me from the UV rays”. It was given by 18% and 5% of men I interviewed.
Of course today men are no less exposed to fashion. Men salon, men fashion magazine, Instagram, men grooming classes and their interest in social media says it all. But is keeping beard mere a fashion statement or there is a sociological change or is it pointing towards a change in mind set. I went ahead to do research by studying doctoral and academic researches by researchers such as Christopher Oldstone Moore who is an author of book “Beard and men”
My assessment came out in the form of these insights.
Our primitive ancestors the apes had no beard but hairy chest, and today we see men with beards but waxed chiseled chests.
Stubble + Stache a company that sells beard grooming products online says
“Across the animal kingdom, the dominant male can get more mating opportunities by intimidating other suitors to step aside. Since men with beards are perceived by both sexes as older, stronger, and more aggressive, the bearded man has an upper hand in perceived dominance, and therefore an increased likelihood of passing his genes on to the next generation. So from an evolutionary perspective, it appears beards serve as a dominance mechanism and therefore indirectly a means of procreation.”
Social codes in India are changing
“Women in India are challenging the traditional patriarchal manhood myths” Keeping beards perhaps is man’s way of calibrating his role in the changing Indian society where the new age independent women had pressed the button of social disruption.
Men are gradually loosening up with the social mores around equality of women. The stereotypical male specimen is fading, but it’s not completely insulated from anxieties and conflicts that come from the long inherited past of male dominance in every sphere of life be it domestic, social or economical.
For long these men have grown up in the male dominated society, and the primal brain of man is hardwired to be the king, always ruling and domineering.
Today households in certain strata of the society are quite open to empower the women in their houses. Men in these houses are observant to these exemplar changes and gradually shifting their mindsets to graduate to become a man who is gradually transcending to form fresh set of ideologies for him.
His heroic archetype does not stand tall in suppressing women but empowering her to be his equal.
He has no shame in sharing domestic chores with his women, and happily being the Ka for his Ki, and the Ka happily manages the household where as his new age woman is the bread earner.
And beard wonderfully adds to this newly adapted identity of his.
Beard many not necessarily be a reflection of these changing ideologies inside him, but definitely a way of expressing his new liberal, free spirited , artistic side.
The postmodern man holds the beard renaissance on his shoulders to bring the traditional moustache and beard back to fashion in a contemporary way. But today as he flaunts his subtle stubble or goatee he is latently shouts that “He is more of a man by being soft and understanding than by being patriarchal, and dominating ”
Today’s man believes “Beard is my new accessory, which was long forgotten and today it does not reflect the pseudo machismo, which it earlier projected”
And why do we forget that India as a country has rich legacy of men with beards. Beards also has been given legitimacy by artists, poets, musicians and similar kindred souls as a marker of liberated thought and expression. Poet Mirza Ghalib, mystic and poet Kabir, great artists such as Jatin Das, Manjit Bawa, Sameer Mondal, Satish Gujral , our PM Narendra Modi all had beard. Rabindranath Tagore’s beard personified thoughtfulness, intellect, wisdom. And may be today’s urban man also is appropriating these values.
Every research, has its final key takeaways and insights
- Yes, the beard has appeared once again in different sizes, colors, and but in current times it has emerged in a more powerful way as symbolism of self expression
2. Keeping beard by a certain section of men is totally a personal choice. For some the reason is to showcase dominance maturity non conformity and for others it is to stand out in the world to express a liberated intellectual artistic thought process
3. But one thing that lie hidden or latent perhaps is that this trend is also rooted in being as a representation of Indian mans evolving role is the modern Indian society. And we should celebrate this trend as a sign of evolution, and lastly men can’t say fashion is only for women.
