A queston of Moustache

As we made our way through southern india, up the west coast, then to northern india, we certainly noticed a lot of moustaches on men. This was of course popular in the US in the 70s, but isn't very popular now so it caught our attention in India.

Per the title of this post, our "question of moustache" was, why is it so popular in India? We don't see it as so flattering (see picture above), but we certainly acknowledge that ideals of beauty vary widely across cultures. However, we never really got an answer to this question. However, we did find that in the north, today's Rajastanis in particular have a rich heritage of moustache-wearing from the Rajputs, provincial warlords of sorts that ruled in Rajastan, in the east they were conquered by the Mughals (or at least allied with them), but in Udaipur the Rajputs held out until the British rule. Please forgive if my Rajastan history isn't perfect. The Rajputs certainly wore moustaches, as even their symbol shows:



In any case, even today, in the tradition of the Rajputs and their kings (the Maharajas), an issue of honour is referred to in the hindi language as "a question of moustache!"

You are invited to view a few modern and historical moustaches we viewed along the way:

http://bitjug.com/gallery/Moustaches