Like a Chacha Chaudhari robber..

Not having a beard these days risks one looking 45plus when one can look 28, ok, 35-36. Alternately while the Twin Towers fall is now long ago enough to be in history books of senior associates even young partners- a beard can also look "like a criminal". Unless one wears a very pleasant expression on the face and isn't seeing going up and down the lift too often (don't ask me the context here). A beard is safe when one within India and two if outside office in India it is advisable to carry a rolled up business magazine- this also serves as an instant weapon for countering street-dogs. It is odd to be seen rolling up a magazine very quickly when an animal barks- an animal unfortunate while it is in the gamble of birth does possess a certain number of teeth. A bit like some Indian laws. On beards and criminals, remembering the Hindi magazines, were they elder readings like Dharmayug, Sarita or Kadambini or ones for us children like Pinky or Chacha Chaudhari, where robbers had slanting streaks sketched over their mouths. The serious magazines are now mainly out of press and the generation that looked forward to them gone along with complusory sari-wear at homes and watching Ramaya-Mahabharat in a room full of familar faces fixed on the present, undistracted by screen or scroll. Sorry to stray the topic, it is the hallmark of the elder. A younger avtaar would have taken the Beverley Hills 90210 TV show song tone: "it's my blog, I will write what I want to, cry if I want to.." Only the Macarena, like Madonna and like Maradona, like the Mandal Commission and Mandela only remind us of how much has passed and like an offer document it is irreversible, unless one wants to file one corrigendum after another. Like an idiot, thinking for the very first time, like an i-i-idiot..(this is a riff from the Madonna song- a tip for the very young and to these young whose ego is as as easily ripped as their jeans: what are you doing here anyway? Go watch another viral video of this week's YouTube hero.) As consolation, we made it through the wilderness. As irony we miss the jungle with its laws and flaws and the assurance of Life.