Know them by their beard? But then a beard does not make a fakir or a saint

As Christmas approaches, I can't help thinking of Santa Claus and the good tidings he might bring to the world this year. But I must confess ever since I read Guy de Maupassant as a teenager, I have been in love with moustaches and quite disliked the beard, Father Christmas notwithstanding.

Maupassant was right – no matter who the man, the beard makes him look dishevelled and untidy. I would say that is as true of Santa Claus as it is of Rabindranath Tagore, though both Father Christmas and the poet are of exemplary character and humour.

I liked Amitabh Bachchan better without his beard than with it and lately I found Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau less handsome with his cross between a French goatee and something else than when he was clean shaven in his garish Indian costumes while on his tour of our nation.

But, of course, the clean-shaven look in a man is my personal preference and I have nothing against men who either genuinely prefer the beard, have their looks better enhanced by facial hair, need to keep one for religious reasons like Sikhs and Muslims or the Amish (in certain parts of the United States) or even to conceal flaws, facial or otherwise. It is only when I have to rest my eyes on men with beards who look more like Asaram Bapu than Rabindranath Tagore that I am completely put off by the beard.

I say this because beards have been much in the news of late with comparisons both to that jail-bird and the Nobel laureate and I do know which one I prefer and which makes me a proud Indian and which a sorry one.

Now that I am beginning to pay some attention to beards, I cannot say there is any hard and fast rule governing the existence of facial hair. Every flowing beard cannot be said to represent Tagore, every groomed one cannot be Amitabh Bachchan's. But while Bachchan's beard perhaps hides his sagging muscles (because, of course, unlike some he is too organic to go in for tucks and knots), there are many who hide a black heart behind groomed white beards – or perhaps even black beards (and we all know how the original black-beard Edward Teach ended up after running a prolific reign of blood and gore and terror on the high seas).

Now even saints and fakirs have beards, some black but mostly white, given their years of wisdom and goodness. But somehow my knowledge of two or three such home grown saints or fakirs have been nothing much to, well, write home about. One has been defrauding tribals of their land and traditional medicine and passing them off as his own for personal profit, another has been doing much the same and feeding us adulterated honey and ghee and what not.

In between has been a cross between an alleged saint and a fakir who has been revelling in destroying the poor and benefitting the rich while two others have been trying to destroy the environment, both natural and social. They are certainly no Santa Clauses, bringing joy and happiness to the people, nor as yet one may compare them to Valmiki, who gave up his dacoity to write the Ramayana, though all of these bearded eminences have been desperately trying to steal the credit for the temple in Ayodhya.

Which, of course, someone else without a beard might run away with - which only goes to prove how wrong I am to suspect that long beards, black or white, hide more infamy than clean shaven villains can hope to do.

Now they say a man without a beard is like a lion without a mane, so the clean-shaven saint had better note that despite gobbling up children and romancers of different religions, he has less chances of attaining lionhood in this country than at least a white beard or a black beard.

On the other hand, I am beginning to believe, beard or no beard, it is quite easy to conceal one’s true disposition under a façade of sainthood and devotion to the nation or any other exemplary institution. That is why it is true that the looks or the clothes (or even the beard or a lack of it) can never make the man and you simply cannot judge a concealed black heart by the outward appearance of suave or charm or even a beautiful smile. Otherwise, the legendary actor Pran would have been a true villain instead of a man with a heart of gold and the so-called saint Asaram would not have been a paedophile as is now obvious.

And so, we must accept that the long-bearded men agitating in New Delhi against the new farm laws are truly farmers for they grow beards because they are mostly Sikhs and these beards are mostly white because they are probably over fifty years of age. But does a farmer have to have a typical look like an army general who quite concealed his Sanghi proclivities behind his clean-shaven look while heading the army?

Do we expect all farmers to be bare bodied, dhoti-clad, sweating, muddied individuals like some typical profiles painted by early Bollywood films? And I despair for the sorry levels of intellectual understanding in this country if every bearded man is described as a Khalistani (or even a fakir) and every farmer or activist a terrorist.

But now if the bearded men protesting against the farm laws are terrorists, what does that make certain black beards and white beards with history of blood and gore behind them riding on high horses today? And if you have to look like what you really are, how does one dress up black hearts to look what they really are or even Sanghis in olives posing as army generals or mighty patriots?

For patriots they are not, if they do not care for every citizen of this country, never mind the profession or religion, if they mix Chinese fructose in Indian honey and pass it off as a pure, desi delectable, if they steal from the poor to pay the rich, impoverishing them further, if they think a Tablighi Jamaat causes Coronavirus to spread and a Jagganath Yatra or Kanwarias do not ... I could add many instances that would be endless.

Give me a Rabindranath Tagore  any day over a Narendra Modi or a Jawaharlal Nehru over a General VK Singh. Oops! Did I get that upside down? They seem so mismatched!  Well, Jawaharlal Nehru over Yogi Adityanath, I think, and Rabindranath Tagore over Baba Ramdev. Heck, they still do not match any which way, beards or no beards.

I am highly confujed! Bahut confujed hoon mein!