Many children have different and wide range of reasons for getting older quickly. I had my own. One of my friends said, he wants to get older because he wanted to shave. In eighth grade I had this friend of mine called Ar. who once surprised me by saying, that morning she smeared the shaving cream all over her face and used her brother’s razor to experience what it feels like when one is shaving? She said among many reasons she hate for being born as girl, one was not getting chances for shave. I didn’t have beard that time and I also had no cravings for beard. I was never excited and prayed god to make me old faster so I can have my chance with shaving. There were few boys in our class who had beard moustache. I never thought they looked better with hair in their face. I always thought they are just the residual relationship between man and his ape counterparts.
Soon the unwelcome guests were growing in my face. I had blisters, irritation and itchy feeling when they started to grow, eventually I learned to adapt with it. Till date they call for irritation if I do not shave them after more than two days. I wonder if instead of beard, paddies or wheat (in smaller version) grew in one’s face that would have alleviated the food crisis in the world. They are the real trouble in bed. I have this habit of sleeping with bare chest in summer. I also move a lot in my sleep and these filthy beard prick me. I get so irritated that I want to wipe away my whole face. Even now as I write this I am feeling like itching my cheeks as I had a shave last Monday. I myself find my face uglier and boring when these unwanted hair sprouts in my face so I take pity on those who have to actually see me frequently.
My friend used to regret being girl for not getting chance to shave and I regret just the opposite way. I wish I could exchange my beard with her smooth cheek. But I don’t think even if it was possible she would now want it because I believe she now knows how irritating it is to shave one’s skin religiously. Actually in metropolis girls shave more frequently than boys, while we shave our cheeks they are more aware of the shrub in their armpit. When I started to have hair in my armpit, I thought it was something I should be shy for. So I used to pluck those hairs one by one with my hand. Gosh!!! It used to be so painful. But I couldn’t do that with beard because beard hairs are much shorter than the hair in armpit. I didn’t even shave them initially so literally I was devolving (read this term ‘devolve’ as opposite to evolve) into a money. Why did they have to grow in my face? One of my brother’s friends felt the same and somebody advised him to scrub his face with one particular kind of stone, few days later he came to school with scratches and abrasions all over his face. Surprisingly I didn’t see beard in his face till I was at school. Last time which is many years back I had seen him and he had beard. I don’t know if he stopped scrubbing his face or his beard had developed the resistance.
With time my body became more fertile for these hair, I had them all over. Many people have them so what’s the big deal, but it was a big deal for me. I hated them; I regarded them as something I should be ashamed of. When they started flourishing in my chest I felt so betrayed by the mother nature, by my genes. I bade goodbye to low neck vests, Bermudas or clothes that exposed my body. I always felt ashamed of them. I used to feel so jealous of people of Oriental origin that if there were sprays available that would sprout hair in human skin, I would have hunted every one of them and sprayed it to them. Nothing of that sort was available. My body resisted to grow up but not my unwanted hair.
Among these species of hair beard was the most detested. Unfortunately in my life I couldn’t learn two things even after trying it for so many time. One is making a knot in the tie and the other is having a clean shave. My cheek is rougher than the upper part of cat’s tongue. Even if I pour an entire tube of shaving cream in my face and have shave I will have no better cheek. As far as tying tie is concerned, if Taare Zamen Par had released during my school days I would have considered myself a case of dyslexia.
Now, I am getting bald. See the tragedy, I have hair in the most unwanted areas and they are falling where I need them the most. In days to come when I stand at the edge of the swimming pool, the other people will think I shaved all my head to stitch the hair all over my body. I already feel nauseated at my image with bald head and creepers like beard and moustache. God why don’t you make me bald in cheek!!!
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