Rule #7 - from the 'Grooming Guide for the Indian Male'

I'm naturally suspicious of men with moustaches - a niggling fear that they have a fetish to hide or something for which they're desperately trying to compensate. In Western countries, I would estimate that the moustache as a facial grooming habit started to decline in the mid-to-late 1980s, when the goatee began to rise in prominence. (I'm not a huge fan of the goatee either, but that's a rant for another time.)

India seems to be on an entirely different timeline in the evolution of male facial grooming habits. The moustache, tragically, is King. Perhaps it is cultivated as an indication of virility, I'm not sure. However, it is probably best if I don't start conducting interviews with random men on the street to discuss my theory. I'm being stared at enough already, I would guess striking up a conversation and asking about a man's virility might garner the wrong sort of attention.

The dominance of the moustache was nowhere more obvious than at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai, where Farah and I stayed with her parents for a few days. One night at dinner I conducted a quick scan of the room and found that 96% of the wait-staff sported a moustache. I suppose its possible the moustache may have been an official part of the C.C.I. uniform, but I don't think that's it.

So I'm trying to evolve my thinking on the subject of the moustache, because I have met some very nice Indian men with moustaches, and on the surface at least, no fetishes in sight. Very open-minded of me, wouldn't you say?