Jiski moonch saaf hoti hai uska mann saaf nahi hota. This line by Bhawani Shankar (Utpal Dutt) in Golmaal describes the back-in-fashion mustached heroes who save the day, destroy the villains and win hearts in Bollywood flicks these days. From Salman Khan in the Dabangg franchise to Ajay Devgn in Singham and the upcoming Himmatwala, Akshay Kumar in this year’s surprise hit  Special 26 and last year’s blockbuster Rowdy Rathore, Arjun Rampal in Chakravyuh and Aamir Khan as Mangal Pandey in The Rising and more recently in Talaash, moustache is the new IN thing.

Be it Chulbul Pandey kicking butts, Bajirao Singham retaliating against the system or Surjan Singh solving a murder case, the moustache is the common factor in all these cops. Add Adil Khan in the Indianized version of Avataar or Vikram Rathore, who doesn’t like to get angry and you get the perfect combo of super cops who are always one step ahead of the bad guys. So is this infatuation with facial hair new, the one that has taken Bollywood by storm? Or are we noticing it now that Sallu bhai has become Robin Hood Pandey!

Moonch Story

For the sake of argument, one should look at the history of moustache and the answer will present itself. Some will argue that before Chulbul Pandey, the style was revived by either Ajay Devgn who sported a moustache in Gangajal, Saif Ali Khan in Omkara, Shah Rukh Khan in Rab Ne Banadi Jori or by the always-perfect Aamir Khan who as Mangal Pandey surprised all and sundry by looking like a freedom fighter in 1857 -

The Rising!

There are many who would even term their favorite hero Jeetendra as the lone carrier of the moustache-trend when he went down under (South India!) to revive his career with hits like Himmatwala, Tohfa and Maqsad. It was a moustache that probably elongated Jeetendra’s life as a filmi hero but the truth is; the style never went away!

Hollywood whiskers

If a list of the most handsome actors in Hollywood is compiled, two of the top three positions would most definitely go to men with moustaches - Clark Gable and Errol Flynn. Both had the charisma to win ladies and they always had their way, be it in It Happened One Night or Gone With The Wind (for Clark Cable) or The Adventures of Robin Hood or The Sea Hawk (for Errol Flynn) along with other flicks they worked in. The great Charlie Chaplin may not be in the league of handsome hunks but when he did become the benchmark for comedians all over the world, it was his trademark moustache (besides his walking style) that was copied by the legendary Raj Kapoor in India, who was in turn blatantly plagiarized by Syed Kamal in Lollywood.

Moonch,
Lollywood ishtyle

Talking of Lollywood, actors like Sudhir, Yusuf Khan, Alauddin, Ejaz and Habib (mostly in pre-Waheed Murad era) got to play the protagonist and the power of the moustache can be judged by the fact that even legendary actor Mohammad Ali donned a pencil thin moustache in his initial movies, mostly when he was playing the villain. Waheed Murad’s ascent to stardom pushed away the moustache for sometime but when Nadeem played villain in Suhaag, he had to sport a moustache to look bad, really bad! Even Waheed Murad had to take the help of a moustache in his last movie (Hero) where he played  double roles, specifically those of an idiot and a gangster, and there are no points for guessing as to what helped others differentiate between the two Waheeds!

The (Dabangg) moonch of Bollywood

Moving over to Bollywood, all actors have taken help from a moustache to either kick start or elongate their careers. Rajesh Khanna became a superstar but only after he sported a moustache in Araadhna while actors like Sunil Dutt (Padosan), Sanjeev Kumar (Sholay), Amitabh Bachchan (Iman Dharam), Dev Anand (Hum Dono), Sanjay Dutt (Vidhaata), Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor (Amar, Akbar, Anthony), all donned a moustache for the sake of variation during their careers. Those who have done most films with a moustache include the likes of the enigmatic Raj Kapoor, the stylish Raj Kumar, the always-angry Shatrughan Sinha, the always-simple Amol Palekar, the magnificent Anil Kapoor, the versatile Kamal Hassan, the marvelous Nana Patekar, the talented Jackie Shroff and the legendary Rajinikanth! Their occasional movies without them sporting a moustache never became as popular as the ones in which they had facial hair, and maybe that’s why when one thinks of them, it is always with a ’stache!

The whys of the moonch

The suave secret agent James Bond doesn’t sport a moustache, and neither does Superman, Batman, The Flash or even Spiderman - the very superheroes we all love. Even Hollywood’s coolest cop Dirty Harry always shaved before taking bad guys out with his .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world that would blow your head clean off! They may have been born in the era when clean-shave protagonists were in demand, but their characteristics don’t include growing hair above their lips! The ones who do are either cast as bumpkins (Inspector Clouseau) or too serious (Lt Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai). In the Indian subcontinent, usually a moustache was the specialty of villains (Ajit, Aslam Pervez, Mustafa Qureshi) or whenever a hero lost his memory; his other personality immediately donned the moustache which seemed comical rather than sensible in literary circles!

The future of the moonch

Is having a moustache the sure-shot route to success in Bollywood? Not really because had it been so, actors from the Tamil industry like Nagarjuna or Arvind Swami would have been superstars in Bollywood and no one would have given a damn to clean-shaven hunks. In such a scenario, we would be without the indomitable Dilip Kumar (the King of Tragedy), the Elvis-inspired Shammi Kapoor (who sacrificed his moustache to carve a separate identity for himself), the handsome Shashi Kapoor (who made a name for himself as a clean-shaven hunk) or the versatile Hrithik Roshan (although he did sport a moustache in Jodha-Akbar) who can out dance any actress when in the mood!

The current boom of mustached heroes is new and will complete its cycle before only a couple of protagonists are left with it. But till then, sequels as well as new scripts would keep churning out characters that have a mustached man at the helm, standing his ground for good and thrashing the baddies with his might and moustache! After all, a man without a moustache is like a cup of tea without sugar. You wouldn’t dream of taking your tea without the sweetener, right?