My years with the crave-n-shave angle

Now I am 53. How I see and what I feel about the evening stubble now may be entirely different from what I had felt at various stages of my age. If I go back in time and try to recollect my impressions of the masculine stubble and what I did or wanted to do to make those men to ‘shave and crave’.

How the teenager in me thought

In our school, we used to have Annual Prize Distribution Function on a rather grand scale. All parents were invited and the chief guest was usually a big shot.  Besides my award for being the topper of the class, I often had other prizes to my credit too. This was because I was an active participant of other activities throughout the year. I was known not only to my classmates and teachers of my class… but my popularity was all over the school. Almost all teachers and students of the school knew me. Not that I was the only of this kind, there were other all-rounders too. But then, they were from the older age group.  In my age group, I used to get the lime-light as I was not only the prize winner, but part of organising teams at different levels.

I looked forward to these Annual Day Functions when my name was called up to come on the stage and collect my prizes not once or twice but many times.

As the function was held in the evenings starting around 6pm, my only worry used to be that my father should not come to function directly from his office with his evening stubble. My father was a smart looking guy and had an impressive personality. And, as I perceived it then, he looked smarter with his fresh shave. So, every possible efforts and excuses were made to make him believe that he needs to take at least a half day off to get home in time to relax, shave again, and get ready for the function. Mom was also given additional directions to ensure that he gets there with his fresh shave. Like all other teenagers I always wanted him look the smartest of all the dads.

My late-teen shave-n-crave anecdote

This was the time when I observed that most of my class mates, whether a boy or a girl, would crave to get the maximum attention of the opposite sex. And this was also the time when boys start to grow a beard and felt no less than a contemporary hero. They tried to imitate Vijay of the movie Zanjeer by following his hairstyle, clothes etc. but certainly not the clean shaven look.

One of my non-sikh friend had once told me ‘No, no…this stubble gives us the manly look’ and did not agree to our advice of shaving every day.

“Alright, it’s your wish.  We cannot force you to follow our advice, but it certainly is disgusting”, said I. Now, this young fellow used to have a crush on one of our juniors. This junior was also a badminton player. Many times this confident guy tried to approach her and tried to talk to her (you see it was not as easy as it is today), but did not get an encouraging response. This baffled him as he always thought that he was the smartest of all the young boys around.

It so happened that there was one badminton tournament. And both needed a partner for the mixed doubles event. Once again he gathered courage and asked her to be his partner for the mixed-doubles event. When he was back with all smiles, we immediately knew that she agreed to be his partner for the mixed doubles. We all knew that both of them made an excellent pair for the badminton match. All felt happy. The next day, we were rather intrigued to see our young friend clean shaven… and could only guess what could have happened!

Without mincing words, we asked him, ‘Where is that manly stubble of yours today?’

Grinning sheepishly at first, but then with an amazing confidence, he told us that the badminton player from our junior class had agreed to be his partner only if he came nicely shaven ever after!

The stubble was never to be seen again… and their partnership let them win not just that game of badminton but also the game of life. His shave had made her crave forever after!

What about the present?

During our conversations, after marriage, while discussing our school days, I happened to narrate these instances to my husband. Unintentionally, I had conveyed my like for crave-n-shave and dislike for stubble. Intelligent as ever, he picked up the clue. And I have yet to see him with stubble in the evenings except when he is too ill to shave. Even then, his love for me craves him to shave as soon as he feels better so that I can have a smooth run of my fingers on his face! And to be true, I love that!!

 

This post is a part of the ‘Shave or Crave’ movement in association with BlogAdda.com

Sangita Passey
07 January 2013