Double-Edged Deliberations

I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink for the 27th time that month.  There it was.  Not many had noticed it.  Yet, it was unmistakable.  My heart stupidly pounded with needless elation.  'Shave it off', said the devil on my left shoulder, 'you can use your dad's razor, you is a big boy now'.  'Don't', said the angel on my right, 'that would be wrong, and besides, if you shave it off, how would you flaunt your new upper-lipholstery to your friends?'  I sighed and reached for my father's Wilkinson Sword double blade cartridge razor.  My peripheral vision confirmed that I was alone.  With a trembling grip, I touched the cool blade to the skin below my nose.  I had seen my father do it twice a day for as long as I could remember, so I was pretty sure I knew the technique.  I closed my eyes.  With the feeling that I was about to commit a major familial misdemeanor, I applied the first shaving stroke of my life.  

That evening in the winter of 1996, I got a proper dressing-down from my father for using his razor; everyone had noticed the fresh laceration on my suddenly light-toned upper lip.  That same evening in the winter of 1996, I was also sent to the neighborhood provision store with ₹12 to buy my own Wilkinson Sword double blade cartridge razor.  It was a double rite of passage for me entering the coveted state of adulthood, although I had pretty much forced my way into it by committing the above crime.

For all the exhilaration and head rush I had experienced at the time of my first shave, my facial hair pruning journey so far has ended up being a bromidic story, one of retrogradation of sorts, with the exception of some embarrassing periods of my life when I was inexplicably convinced that a mustache or a goatee was appropriate.  On the whole I can confidently say that my adult life hitherto has seen a greater percentage of days spent with an unshaven Neanderthal visage than those with a clean shaven well-bred look.  This percentage has ballooned specifically in the last year or so due to the lockdown/work-from-home situation, the only justifiable reasons for shaving being the occasional visits to the office and Facebook Live concerts every once in a while.  

And the reason I say that my shaving journey has been a story of retrogradation is that while the rest of the shaving world has been busy upgrading their equipment to include fancy shaving foams, gels, and cartridges with more and more blades (cartridges with up to 6 blades are available these days), I have downgraded myself to using shaving soap in a mug, a faux badger shaving brush, and an old fashioned single blade safety razor; you know the heavy kind made entirely out of metal, the kind that you have probably seen your grandfather shave his whiskers with, the kind that you could salvage blades from to sharpen your pencils.  I do have an economical case for this choice though.  A lifestyle relying on old fashioned blades is certainly a lot cheaper than the conventional multi-blade cartridge based way of life.  For example, a 100 pack of Astra blades cost me a mere $8 on Amazon and will last me all of 4 years (@ 2 blade changes per month) as opposed to $30 for 15 pack of Gillette Mach 3 cartridges that usually last a mere 15 months (@1 cartridge change per month); yielding a staggering 91.667% savings rate!  

Based on this technologically devolving trend, don't be surprised if by the time I am ready to dip into my 401k for retirement, I downgrade myself to the super old-fashioned straight blade razor; you know the kind an Indian barber would apply to your neck as Altaf Raja unapologetically sang on Vividh Bharati's FM station on the transistor radio behind you.  After all, this humble उस्तरा uses only one half of a blade at a time, the economics of which would allow me to save at an astonishing rate of 95.833% relative to conventional cartridges!  Unless of course I fall prey to social pressure to develop some sort of midlife crisis, begin donning leather pants, and start riding a Harley cross-country while sporting a long grey beard.