It seems sometimes that every post-puberty male in India has a moustache of some kind. One of my regular rituals, when we visit the Subcontinent, is to go the barbers and have a shave. It costs next to nothing and I love having someone else shave me. Cutthroat in hand, the barber begins by lathering the face for about 10 minutes to make the bristles nice and soft and then, just before he begins, he wipes the foam away from your upper lip on the assumption that you want to keep your ‘tash. When you indicate that you want to be clean-shaven he thinks about it for a bit, gives the obligatory head wobble and proceeds to finish the job, albeit a little perplexed by your decision.

Pushkar, Rajasthan  

Bambora, Rajasthan

Kutch, Gujarat 

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh (left) and Kolkata (right)


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