JANUARY 2025: The World Through Words – MOUSTACHE.

Words have traditionally been the backbone of intelligent communications. Some researchers suggest that humans began using spoken words, anywhere between 50000 and 70000 years ago. Words then were often just a collation of sounds, but they seemed to have served their purpose. How they managed their communications in their worlds so long ago can only be imagined!

Today, in the second millennium of the common era, as per Ethnologue, which is a language catalogue and resource site, there are around 7111 languages in the world (not including dialects, sign languages) with an estimated 840 million words.

And with such a surfeit of languages and words, ours should naturally (if not certainly!) be a very interesting world for those of us who will only take some time from our busy routines, to peek into the world of words.

Which is what I intend to do here. Randomly picking one word at a time, over the coming months, I plan to have a quick peek at the diverse and idiosyncratic socio-cultural worlds of human beings, through the selected word, and hope that my ‘peek-report’ brings some smile on the readers’ face.

The first word on my random list is MOUSTACHE.

Facial hair may have been an evolutionary response in human beings, but the words that are used to name them in various languages reveal an interesting world.

The moustache - that feature of human anatomy which is commonly seen below the nose and above the lips - is often a matter of an obsession of proud display amongst males in many cultures, and is considered a matter of shame for most females.

Think of Charlie Chaplin and you cannot ignore the image of the “toothbrush moustache, which was popular for several decades in the early twentieth century.

And who else, but Salvador Dali , can be as well-known for his work as for his waxed moustache. Of course, one would not be wise to ignore or belittle the fictitious character of Hercule Poirot, for his fussiness in grooming a perfectly waxed one!

Can anyone, in their right senses, blame Albert Einstein for sporting an unkempt mane and a wild moustache, what with his preoccupation for conceptualizing the special and general theories of relativity?

Not to be ignored is Ram Singh Chauhan of Rajasthan in India with the longest moustache at 5.65 meters; nor the handle-bar moustaches of many of his contemporaries from the adjoining state of Punjab as well as many of the country’s policemen from the south!

But did you know that several women took great pride in grooming luxuriant moustaches too!

Frido Kahlo, a famous Mexican painter of early twentieth century is as famous for her own prominent unibrow and moustache.

In more recent times, the great pop artist and singer Madonna, has, in her long career, gone through every imaginable change of hair and body color, and it was therefore not a surprise that at one point her facial hair took center stage!

But the woman who continues to set an exemplary status for herself with her moustache is Shyja from Kerala in India, who has gone on record in a BBC interview to assert that she keeps a moustache because she just “likes it a lot’!

So, whether it is from a sense of customary tradition or an idiosyncratic expression and fastidious personality trait, or just a matter of loving it, a moustache can be the door that opens into a world of socio-cultural nuances.

If only we take the courage to grasp and tweak it with our thumbs and forefingers! If indeed, we do happen to engage in this bold affair in a country such as Albania, we will be pleasantly surprised or intrigued to know that there are ten different words to what we are caught up with! Just see the list below:

madh – bushy moustache; holl – thin moustache; varur – drooping moustache; big – handlebar moustache; kacadre – moustache with turned up ends; glemb – moustache with tapered tips; posht – moustache loosely hanging down at the ends;  fshes – long broom-like moustaches with brushy hairs; dirs ur – newly sprouted moustache; rruar – moustache shaved off

I will stop here and allow you to keep wondering at the world through this interesting word!