Which shaving cream do you use !! - signs of wisdom is on face !!

Can you think of one difference that Team India had  under Virat Kohli as compared to Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev ?  [don’t bury yourself into match statistics – the answer is elsewhere !] 

Palmolive burst into the market with advertisements – there was big Kapil Dev affirming ‘Palmolive da jawab nahin’ – then a man with a mike following people and asking – Sir, Which shaving cream do you use ? – a good looking man would say -  ‘colon fragrance, smooth shave – wife loves it’ – then he would ask another man (Prannoy Roy!) who would turn his face to the camera and ask – Me ?? (he would be sporting a beard!)  தாடிகள் எல்லாம் தாகூர் அல்ல !! 

Every adult in their childhood imagines growing a thick moustache and some love having a beard ! 

The Book of Wisdom,  is a Jewish work written in Greek and most likely composed in Alexandria, Egypt. Generally dated to the mid-first century BC, the central theme of the work is "wisdom" itself, appearing under two principal aspects. The first aspect is, in its relation to humankind, wisdom is the perfection of knowledge of the righteous as a gift from God showing itself in action. 

Its author - Solomon was renowned as a sage. Solomon was deemed wiser than all the sages of Egypt and the Middle East—even wiser than some ancient paragons of wisdom. The biblical Book of Proverbs contains collections of aphorisms and other wise teachings attributed to him. Like his father, Solomon was also revered as a poet. 

A beard is the hair that grows on the jaw, chin, upper lip, lower lip, cheeks, and neck of humans and some animals. In humans, usually pubescent or adult males are able to start growing beards.. .. to me things seem to occur  ever since I began growing a beard.  There is an air of maturity and assumption of wisdom attached to my beard, and those who once dismissed me started listening to my speeches !!  .. after some difficulty I started accepting  the new position of wisdom, even though I don’t know anything about anything. I have learned to simply reply, “Patience, patience,” and it is accepted not only as wise but extraordinarily quotable. 

The history of civilization as we know,  has been humankind's struggle to overcome nature, to assert order where entropy rules. But, as Christopher Oldstone-Moore writes in his book Of Beards and Men, each of us play out a microcosm of that struggle every morning in our personal grooming decisions. The question at hand—to grow a beard or to shave—not only tells us a lot about ourselves as individuals, but also, writ large, about our culture as a whole. "The history of men is literally written on their faces," he writes. 

It's periods like the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the 19th Century that he points to as truly beard-centric eras, and in investigating the genesis of each movement throughout the book, he peeks behind the beard to lay out the political, religious, evolutionary, and broader cultural import of what seems on the surface like a largely ornamental matter of personal style. 

Closing with Cricket - In mid 1970s to mid 1980s, Captain Sunil Gavaskar was a clean shaven man, Kapil Dev winning 1983 WC was a big moustached man .. .. Virat  Kohli has a neatly trimmed beard and at some point of time almost everyone in the team under Virat were sporting beards. 

Pictured in Triplicane here are two men – an European and another Indian with flowing beards and glow on their face – have descended from Himalyas, Yoga practitioners, following Sri Sri Art of living (or was that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) .. .. what attracted me towards them was their classic beards

 

Morning wisdom and regards  to all my friends who sport beards and more so to those with white beards !!

 
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
15.2.2024