A Tearful Goodbye

Finally, I caved in. After a long and forlorn battle against society and conservatism, I had to sacrfice a recent and beloved friend to guarentee some peace of mind.

How I miss you already my dear friend, five minutes into your departure and I am ruing my action. Ah, my black, bushy companion, I hope to see you again.

I forget. It so often happens that one starts to ramble on about a topic without getting on the fact that the audience has no idea what you are talking about and before you know it they are on their hind-legs yelling for foot notes.

So here is the lowdown on the issue. It is about this beard I had. Now I have experimented a lot with my facial hair, but this beard was kind of special. It was not the prettiest or the most glamourous but I liked it a lot. And then, the villain came in the form of family and neighbours.

They attacked my sweet little beard tooth and nail. They created arguments based on flimsy grounds such as culture and tradition. But the beard was not going to give in that easily. After all, it grew on a capable chin.

It held out. Somebody said I looked like a fakir. Well, great people like Gandhi have been called that and he did not mind, so I took heart. A certain neighbour said I bore a striking resemblance to another famous personality- Osama Bin Ladan. Well, you got to take the good with the bad, said I to my beard. Little did I know that the sluice gates were just about to be opened. Parents, neighbours, acquintances, even a relative who had not seen me adviced me over the telephone.

My parents redefined the word nagging forever, giving it a whole new dimension and meaning in every plane. Others shot weird glances at me, when they thought I would not notice, but I did. Relatives who had only overtly biased earwitness accounts of the proceedings lamented the flawed and dangerous path of a vagabond that I had supposedly taken. I knew the end was near. My mind was being subjected to torture way beyond what it was made to take. It would crack any moment.It forced me into a choice I did not want to make.

And thus, past midnight on the fourth day of my arrival at Trivandrum, I, armed with a razor blade accomplished that painful task. It was not easy. I mean, when you have a strong bushy undergrowth which has not seen the glint of a Gillette for two months, it is never easy.

So long dear friend. Hope to see you again in the near future.

Damn you, you conservative mallu society!