Brooding Beardo, meet the stranger in the house
My husband has been growing a beard ever since the lockdown started. A longstanding desire of his that was always scuttled, vetoed and dismissed by all those who loved his cleanshaven look.
Initially, we thought that the sloth part of human nature is working overtime till we realised that he was serious about the beard. We were treated to a new look by the day. It was quirky, weird and sort of interesting.
From a teeny-weeny goatie to a little French and now a thick cluster like the Amazon forest. It’s amusing to see his face filling up faster than the grass in our lawn. So now the clean-shaven king of yesteryear looks like a bearded bard in his own court. The heavy countenance makes us feel that he will break into a profound prose or poetry anytime.
On top of that, the affable character has stopped smiling of late. He winces when the children hover around him, scrutinising his look. I too feel like running my fingers over the new crop but his stoic expression stops me in my tracks.
It’s hard to suppress our muffled giggles and sneaky glances. We are trying to come to terms with the stranger with the new imposing look whom we warily cross by in the house. The change is bigger for me as I encounter a strange yet familiar figure the moment I wake up.
He was able to keep his new avatar under wraps for days together as only the children and I were witness to his adventure. All was going well till he fell victim to the awkward and embarrassing side-effect of the quarantine era: A video call from his friends. Pacing up and down in the drawing room, he refused to accept their calls. Another fallout of the lockdown is that you’re left with few options to evade a call. The friends were persistent and he finally gave in.
The rest of us were curious to gauge their reactions. We craned our necks, perked up our antennae and held our breath to eavesdrop. There were gasps followed by unabashed laughter from the other side. Being childhood buddies, the friends were merciless. “Hey! Who the hell are you?” asked one; “Hello Devdas, are you missing your Paro?” said another; “Which bank are you planning to rob today?” joked the third; before the fourth snidely remarked, “Looks like bhabiji is making you do all the chores. No time to shave pal!”
When the initial euphoria subsided, a serious discussion on different types of beards ensued. To sport one or not was the crux of the idle talk and to my surprise, the conversation stretched to an hour and a half. It’s a revelation that men can also talk about looks as long as we can talk about our dresses. The minutes of the virtual meeting concluded and the premier of our house let out a hearty laugh. All this while we had been wondering why this friendly soul was always brooding. He was actually stressed about facing his friends! Now that he had got a green signal from his ilk, he regained his sense of humour.
Meanwhile, the big boss is exploring different shapes and sizes of beards on the net. He has already laid siege to my son’s precious trimmer and is going to try new contours on his face. So, we are in for yet another phase of experimentation and we hope he will settle for a look once this lockdown is over.
BIG BOSS IS EXPLORING DIFFERENT SHAPES AND SIZES ON THE NET. HE HAS ALREADY LAID SIEGE TO MY SON’S PRECIOUS TRIMMER